


spooky scary skeletons

by ObscureReference



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Ghosts, Horror, Injury, M/M, Minor Violence, Paranormal, Possession, Shower Sharing, all the pairings are pretty light, almost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 12:51:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5128289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No, it's not like that," Ransom interrupted. "I don't know how to explain it. It's dumb."</p><p>"Could you try?" Holster prompted. He would probably be— not mortified, but at least partially embarrassed at the pleading tone his voice took on, if he was speaking to anybody else. But with Ransom it was okay.</p><p>Another pause. Ransom shuffled some more on the other end.</p><p>"You know all those times I slept in your bed because of creepy shit in the old Haus? Like when I would feel someone touch my butt or hear pop music or whatever?"</p><p>"You mean because of the ghosts?"</p><p>"Yeah, except ghosts aren't real, so not really."</p><p>----</p><p>Or, the team moves in to a new Haus for Bitty's junior year and it's super haunted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spooky scary skeletons

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to get this out by Halloween, but honestly I'm pretty impressed I got it out this early. It's probably the longest thing I've written in my entire life. I hope you guys enjoy. Tell me if I missed anything in the tags or made any inconsistencies. I'll try to fix them as soon as possible.

At the tail end of the summer between Bitty's sophomore and junior year, the Haus catches on fire.

It's not a big fire by any means. It started as an accident, a kitchen electrical fire that was spotted by a late night passerby on their way back home. The fire department was called and the fire, which at that point had consumed most of the kitchen, was quickly doused.

Even so, the Haus was deemed structurally unsound for the upcoming school year. It would take some time to rebuild, the school said. After some long talks between the hockey coaches and the school, the university promised to help find new residences for the displaced hockey players, who did not have nearly enough time to find new accommodations on their own. Luckily, there was another empty frat house only a few houses down from the old Haus that hadn't been used in several years. Despite its age, the house was deemed up to code.

Ransom and Holster immediately dubbed it Haus 2.0.

\------------

There had been a long group chat discussion before Bitty got back on campus about Haus 2.0 and what it all meant. He was actually pretty bummed they wouldn't be in the old Haus, but then he caught sight of the blueprints Holster had somehow snagged and taken pictures of. The kitchen looked big. Larger than the Haus's kitchen. And the second floor of Haus 2.0 was nearly identical to the second floor of the old Haus, albeit with more space. So was the attic. The first floor was the only real difference.

 _dibs on the first floor_ , Lardo sent immediately upon seeing the pictures Holster sent, claiming the only room on the ground floor before anyone else.

Bitty's phone vibrated with several variations of the same complaint right afterward. The first floor bedroom was right next to the kitchen. Even if the room didn't look that large when compared with the rest, it held easy kitchen access. Prime pie territory. Bitty didn't have it in him to give up the same room on the second floor he had had for the past year just to be closer to the kitchen, but Lardo was smart enough to call dibs as soon as she could.

Ransom was the only one besides Chowder who actually voiced his complaints about moving, though Chowder's sadness had quickly faded after Bitty mentioned how neat it was that they got to personalize a whole new house without any of the weird stains or disease-filled couches already built in.

 _I don't know, I'm just gonna miss it,_ Ransom texted.

 _bro, we're still gonna get the attic,_ Holster sent back. _it's probably gonna be even bigger than the old one. think about what we could do with all that extra space._

 _I guess there's that_ , Ransom allowed. _I still call top bunk._

After Lardo called dibs on the first floor, Holster and Ransom made the rule that no one could call dibs on any other rooms before they got there. Except the attic, which belonged to them. And the room that looked like Bitty's room from the old Haus. That was Bitty's.

Which really left only two rooms on the second floor. The ones that, had it been the old Haus and not Haus 2.0, would have belonged to Jack and Shitty.

It was Chowder who pointed it out.

 _wait!!!_ He texted about ten minutes in to the conversation. _there's an extra bedroom tho???_

Bitty quickly did the math. Chowder was right. Shitty had originally given his room to Lardo, but now that she had claimed the brand new room on the first floor, it left a room on the second floor unclaimed. Ransom and Holster _could_ just split up, he knew, but they would never do that and both of them adamantly refused when the topic was brought up.

One quick text to Jack and Shitty, and it was decided. Nursey and Dex had always been next on their list of dibs candidates. Since they couldn't really decide who deserved it more out of the two of them, both of them got the room. Two rooms, three frogs. Someone would be sharing on the second floor. It sure wouldn't be Bitty.

That discussion was quickly put to rest as well. Whoever got to Haus 2.0 first would have their own room, and the other two would just have to bunk together. If Ransom and Holster could make it work, so could the others. Bitty just hoped it wasn't Dex and Nursey. He could only imagine the arguments they would have. Nobody would ever get any sleep. Considering Chowder lived on the west coast, it seemed unlikely that would happen, however.

It wasn't an unfair deal. Haus 2.0 looked somewhat larger than the old Haus and the extra bedroom meant they could have Lardo and all of Bitty's frogs without complaint. It was actually a fairly _good_ deal, he had to admit.

Still, a little piece of sadness wedged in to Bitty's heart. He loved the Haus, even with all its shitty appliances. He loved all the memories he had there, of the (maybe) ghosts that teased Ransom, of baking pies with the frogs, of Betsy's failure and subsequent replacement, of _Jack_ —

But Jack was gone. It wouldn't have mattered if the Haus caught fire or not, because Jack would still be gone. And it wasn't like Bitty wouldn't be able to move back in to the real Haus his senior year, when it would be fixed up. He'd just have to make the most of it in the meantime.

The boys were right. Haus 2.0 was going to be a blast.

\-----------

Bitty was the third to arrive, right after Holster and Ransom. Despite it having been several days since their arrival, Ransom and Holster hadn't cleaned at all. Haus 2.0 was dusty as hell.

"Why didn't ya'll run a rag over this stuff already?" Bitty complained, opening a window by the front door, nose scrunched up. "Everything is coated in dust!"

Holster merely tipped his head back on the couch and smiled. "Dude, the semester hasn't started yet. It's our senior year. I'm not doing any work before I have to, even if that work is just making this place habitable."

The "our" clearly referred to Ransom as well and said senior flashed Bitty a thumbs up.

"We took care of the attic though," Ransom added. "I didn't want to die of suffocation in my sleep."

Bitty frowned. "With attitudes like that, I wonder how the kitchen fared."

Without even entering the kitchen, Bitty could make out it's layout from the front hall. Actually, he could make out most of Haus 2.0's layout from the front hall.

The living room was immediately to the right of the doorway, no separation between the front area and the couch besides the large rug spread out in front of the door. The rug must have been as old as the house itself. Just as ugly too. There was a door on the far wall next to the TV that Bitty knew from the blueprints to be the basement.

Directly ahead of the front door was the kitchen. Bitty could already spot a table in the middle of the kitchen, larger than the one they'd had previously. He wondered if it was large enough to sit all the House-mates at once. Family dinners would be a nice way to start off. The stove and fridge looked a little dated, but usable. He could work with it. There was definitely more space than there had been before and Bitty relished the chance to spread out.

A hallway to the left of the kitchen led to what Bitty knew to be a bathroom/shower combo and Lardo's room. He didn't bother checking that out. The staircase was to the right of the kitchen and Bitty didn't bother immediately heading upstairs either. The layout there was just the same as the old Haus. Instead, Bitty wondered if it was worth buying cleaning supplies before getting straight to cooking.

"Don't worry, Bits," Ransom told him. "We cleaned the fridge,  so you can actually put food in there without worrying about fungus and stuff. It's not bad."

"Uh-huh," Bitty said, nodding. He made no move to leave the doorway. "And you want me to clean the rest of it myself?"

"It's summer until the first day of classes, man," Holster said. "We'll totally help you clean once it's actually time for work."

It was time to pull out the big guns.

"If I'm the one cleaning it all, I guess that just means I'll have to eat everything I bake by myself too," Bitty said, taking joy in the way Ransom and Holster perked up at the word 'bake.' "If I'm even able to bake anything in there. It might take an awfully long time to clean by myself and I don't plan on cooking in a filthy kitchen. I guess it'll just have to be a few days then. Maybe even a week or so."

Holster and Ransom shared a glance Bitty pretended not to see. Then they both vaulted over the couch and in to the kitchen. Bitty laughed.

For a house made in the 70's, everything seemed to be in alright condition. The stairs squeaked a little when he walked up them and the pipes took a moment to come back on after years of disuse, but if that was the worst Bitty could find, then Haus 2.0 was pretty okay.

It sure was dusty, though. Bitty dumped his bag on his bed and got to work.

It was a little musty upstairs, but nothing an open window and some Febreeze wouldn't fix. Bitty used both. With paper towels, an empty waste basket and determination, Bitty cleaned out most of his new bedroom in no time. His ratty tank top was coated in dust by the time he finished, but he had specifically worn it because he knew he would be cleaning. It wouldn't be a big loss to toss it after he was done. The only thing left was the closet anyway.

It was a walk-in, which Bitty appreciated. One exposed light bulb hung from the ceiling, a cord hanging down at eye level to switch it on and off. There were racks to hang his clothes from and shelves so close to the ceiling Bitty needed a chair to reach them. There was even a small shoe rack in the back. Bitty grabbed the chair from his desk and started with the shelves.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped on the chair was the box pushed off to the side on the top shelf. Bitty grabbed it and glanced at the lettering. Something was definitely inside, but it wasn't heavy. The printed words were too faded for him to read so close to the overly-bright closet light, however.

It had definitely been there a long time, if the dust that filled the air in a small cloud when Bitty shook it was any indication. He sneezed.

Bitty's bedroom door slammed open so fast he nearly fell off the chair in surprise.

"Bitty! The kitchen's clean!"

"You know, if you wanted to make something. Right now. Just FYI."

Holster and Ransom's twin pleading faces looked back at him from the doorway. Bitty clutched the front of his tank top.

"Goodness! Ya'll nearly gave me a heart attack!"

They at least had the decency to look apologetic.

"Sorry, man," Ransom said. He gestured downstairs. "But we really did cleanup."

It had been long enough that Bitty didn't doubt it. If he had already cleaned most of his room, he knew Ransom and Holster had to be finished with the kitchen already. Dust didn't take that long and they were an efficient team.

"Alright," Bitty said. "It's about time I took a break anyway. Just give me a minute to clean myself up."

He watched Ransom and Holster fist bump as he climbed down from the chair and turned off the closet light. Ransom ducked out, but Holster lingered a moment, pointing at Bitty's hands.

"What's that?"

Oh. The box. He had almost forgotten he was holding it.

Holster took it as Ransom peeked back in, no doubt wondering why Holster hadn't immediately followed in his footsteps.

"Oh, nice," Holster proclaimed, making out the words much better than Bitty had. "It's a Ouija board! Is this yours?"

"Oh, fuck that," Ransom said suddenly. He kept his body hidden behind the doorframe. He looked ready to leave at any second. Bitty squinted.

"A what?" He asked.

Holster waved the box around. "You know, a spirit board? You use it to contact ghosts and stuff."

He turned to the doorway.

"Hey, Rans, you wanna contact some ghosts? It'll be like a housewarming since we left the old Haus ghosts behind."

"Ghosts aren't real and Ouija boards do nothing," Ransom said firmly, but Bitty didn't miss the nervous way he glanced at the box before ducking out again. The stairs squeaked loudly when he stomped downstairs.

"He's probably happy to have left the old ghosts behind," Holster said, turning back to Bitty. "What about you? Feel like having a spiritual experience?"

Holster grinned and winked at him suggestively. Bitty merely grimaced

"The only spiritual experience I need in my life is Beyoncé." A thought struck him. "Did ya'll even buy ingredients for me to bake with or did you expect me to run to the store in my filthy clothes?"

He was mostly joking, but to his great surprise, Holster answered the affirmative.

"Oh, ye of little faith," Holster said. "Of course Rans and I went shopping in preparation of your arrival. The fridge is already stocked."

"Without me even telling you what to buy?"

"Uh, _yeah_! Mostly." He paused. "We took a good guess. Also, we bought like 30 sticks of butter, so I think we did okay."

After a quick shower, Bitty was even more surprised to find that Ransom and Holster, while knowing nothing about baking, had followed their shopping instincts correctly. There were more than enough ingredients to make a variety of dishes. Bitty's fingers itched to make them all.

Despite it probably being fueled by an overwhelming desire for sweets, Bitty was touched they had bought so much out of their own pocket for him to use. It was almost too much. He placed his fingers over his heart with a small gasp as he took in the stock once more. Behind him, Holster and Ransom high-fived.

As much as he craved to make more, Bitty stuck with apple pie as a classic housewarming gift. He made two, one for the boys who had cleaned the kitchen and one for the rest when they got there. Bitty had nearly drowned in compliments by the time Ransom and Holster finished their third slice of pie. Apparently they had really missed his baking. Bitty couldn't say he wasn't pleased.

It was late in the afternoon by the time he had unpacked most of his clothes. He was in the middle of a short water break when his phone vibrated.

His phone registered the call as _Jack Zimmerman - Facetime_ , but when Bitty answered, he could only stare at the screen.

"Hello?" Jack asked. "Are you there?"

"Is that the side of your head?"

"What?"

"Jack, you're sending video."

"Oh."

Jack pulled back so Bitty could actually see his face. Despite doing this several times over the summer, Bitty felt his heart flutter a little.

"Are you moved in already?" Jack asked. The screen cut off the top of his head, but Bitty couldn't complain. "You should show me around the Haus and let me see what's new."

"Come on," Bitty teased. "You know it's Haus 2.0."

"My apologies."

Bitty showed him, going in to excessive, exaggerated detail that made Jack chuckle. The moment Holster and Ransom realized he was on Facetime, they began photobomb-ing every inch of the screen, strike this or that pose every time Bitty turned around. It was hard not to laugh.

That lasted about fifteen minutes until Bitty got to the first floor and the devious duo wandered off in search of another slice of pie. Bitty was showing off their new, non-contaminated couch when Jack cut him off.

"What's that lead to?"

"What?" Bitty asked. It took him a moment to realize the camera was pointed between the TV and staircase. "Oh, that's the basement, I think. Holster said he checked it out earlier, but it was mostly full of junk. Ransom says it's a torture cellar, but he also refused to go down there out of fear, so."

They both snorted at the same time and that sent them both in to another giggle-fit. Bitty felt better about Haus 2.0 already.

\----------

Lardo was the next to show up and she claimed her first floor bedroom as promised. She took one look around the room, not nearly as big as some others in the Haus, and pronounced it, "Good enough" before dropping her bags to the ground and jumping on the bed. She took the slice of apple pie Bitty handed her with a smile. The afternoon light that came through the window shone across her face like Lardo herself was glowing.

Ransom and Holster had bought a _lot_ and Bitty refused to work with anything less than fresh ingredients, so he welcomed the frogs with peach cobbler. Chowder took it with an excited squeal as he claimed the room across from Bitty's, the one that was identical to Jack's at the old Haus. It was a mostly fine arrangement, besides the fact Chowder had arrived first. Which meant there was only one room left in Haus 2.0 for Nursey and Dex to share.

Dex and Nursey appeared at the front door at the same time, somehow timing their arrival despite not traveling together. Bitty expected them to put up a bigger fight at the arrangement, but to his great surprise, Nursey only shrugged while taking a bite of the cobbler and Dex took his own plate with a mild, "Whatever."

"Oh, look at the two of you," Bitty said over the kitchen table. "The two of ya'll are growing up!"

Dex blushed a little at the compliment and his flush only deepened as Chowder hugged him from around the waist.

"You guys are getting along right off the bat!" Chowder exclaimed. Dex stuttered as Chowder continued, "Plus your room connects right to mine! You guys! This is gonna be a great year, I can feel it!"

Chowder released Dex's waist only to throw himself in to Nursey, who hugged back with one arm while still holding his plate with the other. Nursey looked back and forth between the two of them before finally settling his eyes on Dex.

"I don't mind sharing," he said.

Bitty was pretty sure he wasn't talking about the bedroom. Or maybe talking too much about the bedroom. Dex opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"I'm really happy you guys are getting along so fast," Chowder said.

Bitty, who felt too much like an intruder at that point, snuck out of the kitchen.

\----------

The thing is.

Classes start and things get busy. He unpacks and gets into a rhythm and runs through the baking supplies like they're endless. He Skype's Jack every few days and goes out to coffee with Lardo. He bakes and bakes and fills Haus 2.0 with so many smells it doesn't seem like the old, empty building it was when they moved in. He's happy to be back at Samwell.

The thing is.

The things is.

The things is, by this time, Bitty expected to feel at home here. And he does feel at home, with the people and the university itself. But not in the building. Not in the house.

Maybe he had expected, a little, to feel as at home in Haus 2.0 as he had in the original Haus. Or at least not so foreign. It was almost like he could feel the apprehension of being a freshmen again, only without all the excitement and hope that came from being in a new place. The Haus just. Didn't feel comfortable. Like things were always a little out of place. And maybe that was his fault too, for comparing it to the other Haus so often. They were so similar he forgot they actually were pretty different too.

He didn't really know how to explain it. If someone had asked him why he felt that way, Bitty couldn't really pinpoint anything. It just _was_. He simply didn't settle in Haus 2.0 the way he expected, even after two weeks of classes and routine.

Of course he didn't say anything. Not even to Jack, because what's there to do? It wasn't the people. It wasn't anything in particular, really. Bitty just has to get used to it. And he would. He just needed a little more time.

\----------

"Why's it so cold in here?" Holster moaned as he fiddled with the thermostat on the kitchen wall.

Bitty set the tray he was holding in the oven and closed the door, turning to look at him.

"Feels fine to me," Bitty said. "Where's Ransom?"

"Library," Holster answered. "And it's _freezing_."

"It's in the high 70's outside. There's no way it's not warmer than that in here."

"Like you're one to judge," Holster said without looking back, tapping on the thermostat like he didn't trust it. "It's been like this for like a week and _you're_ next to the oven all day. The host, toasty oven."

Bitty had to give him that one. He spotted Lardo walking through the front door on her way in from outside.

"Hey, Lardo, is it cold in here to you?"

"Nope," Lardo answered, popping the 'p' as she passed by. She stole a muffin off the counter and disappeared down the hall. Bitty heard her bedroom door shut behind her.

"See?" Bitty said. "Are you feeling alright? Not sick, are you?"

Holster waved him away. "I'm fine. It's just chilly in here."

He tapped at the thermostat one more time and then bounded upstairs, jacket pulled tight across his shoulders. Bitty watched him go, making a mental note to make some soup before dinner and maybe pick up some cold medicine from the store.

\----------

Chowder never had nightmares. Never. But lately he hadn't been sleeping very well.

At first he thought he was too excited to sleep, and honestly, he probably had been. Living in the new Haus, Bitty rooming across the hall, Dex and Nursey in a room connected to his—how could he not be excited?

But even though his excitement had lessened somewhat from actually living in Haus 2.0 for a few weeks, he still couldn't sleep. And when he did sleep, he woke up feeling... Not Good was the only way he could describe it. It was hard to find the words.

The feeling always passed by the time he got to class, so mostly Chowder didn't feel like it was that big of a deal. But it was pretty annoying and a little unsettling to wake up every morning with your whole body down to your bones feeling funny.

Chowder grabbed a muffin off the tray Bitty kept out on the kitchen table. He thought maybe the Haus was empty already, but then he heard the tell-tale creak of someone descending the staircase. Dex and Nursey's raised voices were easy to make out in the relative silence of the Haus. Chowder winced.

They had been doing so well for the first week! They hadn't fought, hadn't gotten in to their weird competitions over who could be the most passive-aggressive. Neither had demanded a new roommate. It had been great! The first week had been heaven, his two best friends actually _getting along_ , hanging out together without Chowder feeling like he was walking on eggshells. Chowder really thought things were going to be different.

But then Chowder woke up early that Sunday morning to muffled crashes and a heated argument through the walls. He'd been too tired at the time to make out the words, but now he wished he had just so he could have known what had started that first argument and how to fix it. After that morning, Dex and Nursey had gone back to fighting all the time.

But it was even different now. A little meaner than it had been before. A little harsher than the words should have been, even over petty things. Chowder had tried interrupting them once or twice, tried changing the subject, but it was like they couldn't even hear him these days. They just went on snarling at each other.

Nobody had requested a room change yet, which gave Chowder some hope. But then again, that could just be each of them hoping the other one gave up first. So that didn't mean much. All Chowder knew for sure was that it was nearly unbearable to be around both of them when they got in to one of their moods.

Even though his class didn't start for another hour at least, Chowder slipped on his backpack and grabbed another muffin from the kitchen tray. Dex and Nursey's rising voices swallowed up the sound of his footsteps and Chowder apologized to thin air as he snuck out the front door.

\----------

Holster stared in to the backyard from the porch and fidgeted a little with the collar of his sweater. The forecast swore it would still be in the high 70's today, but it was chilly enough that he'd had to put on layers just to get out of bed properly this morning. He pressed _talk_ on his phone and listened to the ringing on the other end.

Ransom picked up after the third or fourth ring.

"Hey, man, what's happening?"

Holster cut right to the chase. "Are you avoiding me?"

" _What?_ " Ransom sounded properly scandalized. His horrified tone of voice at least made Holster feel marginally better. But.

"Listen, bro," Holster said. "You are my best friend in the whole world. Forever. And if you're mad at me for some reason, I'll fix whatever it is I did. But please just tell me what it was."

"Holtzy, what are you talking about? How could I ever be mad at you?"

As though it wasn't obvious why they were having this conversation. As though it wasn't obvious why they were having this conversation _on the phone_ instead of face to face.

"Dude. You haven't been to the Haus in like two days. And I _know_ you haven't been with a girl, so don't even try to pretend otherwise."

Ransom sounded just as fidgety over the phone as Holster was in person. He could hear the shuffle of Ransom moving papers and books around.

"I've just had a lot of work to do lately," Ransom said. "I'm sorry."

"It's not even midterms yet," Holster told him. "You can't have _that_ much work to do already. Not so much that your best bro can't help you out."

Holster adjusted the phone and switched it to his other ear. The breeze made his sweaty palms feel too cold.

"We're seniors now," Ransom said. "We can't let things slip by like we did before."

Holster frowned. "Don't even pretend like that's all it is. I texted you that there was a _Back to the Future_ marathon on yesterday and you didn't even respond. I thought you loved watching movie marathons with me."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Holster unthinkingly scuffed his shoes across the rough wood of the back porch. He wondered if he left right then if he could find whatever library Ransom had set himself up at before Ransom went to dinner.

"Promise you won't laugh," Ransom told him after a long moment.

Holster nodded even though Ransom wasn't there to see it, pushing up the bridge of his glasses as they slipped down his nose.

"Of course."

There was another beat before Ransom spoke again.

"I don't like Haus 2.0."

"What, like it's too drafty or something?" Holster asked, once again tugging at the collar of his sweater.

"No, man, like." Ransom's breath was audible. "Like I don't like it there. Like it doesn't feel like a good place to be."

Holster mulled that over for a moment. "I mean, I know it's different with Jack and Shitty gone, but it's still mostly the same. I could, like, get some new welcome rugs and candles or something to make it feel more homey—"

"No, it's not like that," Ransom interrupted. "I don't know how to explain it. It's dumb."

"Could you try?" Holster prompted. He would probably be— not mortified, but at least partially embarrassed at the pleading tone his voice took on, if he was speaking to anybody else. But with Ransom it was okay.

Another pause. Ransom shuffled some more on the other end.

"You know all those times I slept in your bed because of creepy shit in the old Haus? Like when I would feel someone touch my butt or hear pop music or whatever?"

"You mean because of the ghosts?"

"Yeah, except ghosts aren't real, so not really. It's like that. Only, I feel like that _all the time_ here. And it's worse."

Holster wasn't going to lie. At least not to himself. He was _marginally_ annoyed that Ransom was avoiding him over ghosts. Or, he was avoiding Haus 2.0, and Holster by extension. He was also a little hurt that Ransom hadn't come to him with this sooner. After literally sleeping in the same bed because of ghosts before, Holster thought it would only make sense for Ransom to come to him for ghosts again. But apparently not.

Mostly, though, he just wanted to fix whatever it was that bothered Ransom and have him back. It was lonely in the attic alone and the air felt emptier up there without someone else to share it with. And obviously this new ghost business bothered Ransom so much that he felt like he couldn't even _talk_ about it with Holster, which was a big no-no in his book. So even though he was a little hurt, his primary focus was helping Ransom, however that may be.

"Okay," Holster said. "So. How do we fix it?"

They'd dealt with ghost nonsense before, though Holster had to admit he'd never _actively_ tried to get rid of the ghosts.

"You think I know?" Ransom asked. He had a point. "All I know is that place gives me the creeps."

"Okay, so we'll start from there. You can come back, shower like I know you haven't, get some real food in you and we'll work on it. We'll find what creeps you out the most and what makes you feel better and we'll fix it."

"I don't know," Ransom said. "I don't think it's that simple—"

"Ransom, come on, man. We'll do this. Together. I'll literally be with you the whole time."

"...Really?"

"Yeah," Holster said. "I'll be your bad-vibe buffer. I'll even wait outside when you shower and everything. No creepy feelings are going to get you when our best friend feelings cancel them out."

Holster was grinning into the phone by the end of it and he knew Ransom would be doing the same. He didn't know how to fight negative feelings or even if ghosts were real. Not really. But damn if he didn't know Ransom.

Honestly, the whole situation was a little ridiculous, but Holster wasn't going to lose his best friend to a _building_.

"Alright," Ransom said and Holster cheered. "Okay, you're right. I'll come back."

"Right now?"

"Right now. See you in ten."

They hung up and Holster stuffed the phone back in his pocket, pumping his other fist in the air in celebration. He didn't even care if anyone else was around to see. Honestly, ghosts were not how he expected the conversation to go when he started, but Holster wasn't going to complain. He got his best friend back and that was what mattered.

For a moment he wondered if Haus 2.0 maybe being haunted was something he should tell the others about, but then thought better of it. Ghosts had always targeted Ransom and left the rest of them alone. If Ransom wanted the rest of them to know, it was his secret to tell. Otherwise it wasn't that important.

It felt like it had warmed up since Holster had started the phone call. He pulled his sweater off, adjusting the long sleeved shirt he wore underneath. Holster was grateful for the temperature increase, no matter how brief. He went inside.

\----------

As much as he would never admit it to anyone, Nursey was not feeling very chill. Not lately anyway. He thought he had been getting along with Dex pretty well too. And then...

He frowned. And then what? He wasn't sure. One second they were cool and the next it was like every little thing Dex did was designed with the specific purpose to piss Nursey off. He moved Nursey's stuff, made too much noise when he came back at night, his opinions were nothing short of obnoxious and he couldn't grasp the idea he was ever wrong about anything. Not that Nursey wasted his time getting worked up about those kinds of things. Because he wasn't. He just thought it was only in the spirit of things to retaliate. It wasn't like anyone could prove he shook the bunk bed a little harder than necessary when climbing to the top or laughed a little louder at Chowder's jokes than he would have if Dex wasn't in the room.

Stop.  

He had come out to the pond to get away from negative thoughts, not dwell on them. The pond was nice, charming, relaxing. The perfect muse for a poetry assignment.

Nursey stared out into the pond for a moment, idly watching the ripples in the water. Every now and then he glanced up long enough to watch a couple walk by and then turned his attention back to the water. He didn't choose to think about anything in particular. Inspiration would come when it chose.

"Nursey! Hey!"

It was Chowder's voice. Nursey would have recognized it anywhere. He twisted in his seat by the water, looking up at the sidewalk behind him. Chowder was smiling and waving like it was the most important thing on Earth to get Nursey's attention and then keep it. Well, he had it. Nursey grinned.

The grin fell off his face when he saw who else was there, however. Dex stood next to Chowder, arms crossed and looking none too pleased to see him. The feeling was mutual. After the near-brawl they'd had the night before, Nursey wasn't sure if he could put up with Dex for another minute. But even out here, it seemed, they couldn't escape each other.

Chowder caught on to the looks Dex and Nursey were shooting each other, and Nursey suddenly felt deflated as he watched Chowder wilt, watching his arm fall back to his side and his smile fade back in to a frown. Chowder rubbed his arm nervously, glancing back and forth between them. He took a step backwards like he was getting ready to leave.

Nursey couldn't take it anymore. He waved them over, both of them, and Chowder immediately brightened up. It wasn't unlike a sunflower springing back from a frost.

Let Dex do what he wanted, Nursey thought. He was going to talk to Chowder and if Dex wanted to tag along, let him. Nursey would put up with him. For Chowder.

\----------

Holster readjusted himself in the chair and didn't take his eyes away from where he was secretly-not-secretly watching Ransom do his class work. Holster had already finished most of his, which was why he had thrown his legs over the arm of the chair he was in and idly scrolled up and down the webpage instead of actually reading anything.

It had been three days and even though Holster now felt like an expert on everything involving ghosts and how to fight them, there really had been no progress on the Great Haus Mystery so far. Ransom had come back to Haus 2.0 like asked, but the only productive thing that had come from that was they established that Ransom disliked the basement the most, though whether that was for paranormal reasons or Ransom just really didn't like the creepy-crawlies that were bound to thrive down there was up in the air. Ransom had refused to go down there and had protested even Holster doing so, though Holster only found exactly what he knew there to be already: garbage, water stains and more garbage. Nothing else.

The only real change that had come from their three day investigation was that Ransom somehow felt _more_ uncomfortable in the Haus than before. He said sleeping with Holster and keeping him close made him feel a little bit better, but it was obvious by the way he fidgeted and shot looks at the door every few minutes that he was desperate to leave. Eventually Holster had relented. There was no sense in torturing Ransom when they didn't know where to go at this point. Which was how they ended up in the library again.

"Why's it just me?" Ransom said suddenly, not bothering to look up from his biology work. "How come no one else feels as weirded out there as I do?"

Holster tapped his fingers on one of the keyboard letters idly, watching the way Ransom's fingers arranged and rearranged his papers. "It's because you're psychic, bro."

 _That_ made Ransom look up. He stared at Holster like he thought the blond was crazy. Holster only shrugged.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," he said. "Psychics are more sensitive to spirits and stuff than regular people. Which is why you sense stuff and I don't."

"Psychics aren't real."

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Holster repeated.

Ransom looked unamused. "It really doesn't."

"I mean, think about it." Holster stretched one arm over his head and glanced at the clock. It was getting late. "In the old Haus, all that paranormal shit would happen to you all the time and none of the rest of us would see anything. And now here, you said it was pretty similar, except more malicious or whatever. Nobody else has ever complained. It's just you. What makes you different to the average Joe? You're sensitive to spirits. Psychic."

Ransom snorted and looked back down. Holster only shrugged. He hadn't expected Ransom to believe him. It was a true statement, whether Ransom agreed with him or not. He turned his attention back to the computer in his lap.

It was time to go the old fashioned way: look at Haus 2.0's history. Maybe someone had been murdered there or something, Holster thought idly. That would at least make sense.

\----------

It was October. Bitty _loved_ October. He loved pumpkin everything, the way the leaves changed color, all the pictures of babies in costumes that went online. And there were so many new fall pastries to make as well. If Bitty could have transformed in to the literal personification of October and all things Halloween, he would have thought about it. Deeply.

It was October and Bitty wasn't feeling it.

It just. Didn't feel like Halloween. Or maybe too much like Halloween.

This morning Bitty had thrown out a whole box of blackberries and a mostly full carton of milk. Both of which he _knew_ he had bought the day before. And yet when he opened the fridge this morning, the milk was rancid and lumpy and the berries had grown some sort of mold overnight. It was disgusting, and absolutely threw off Bitty's morning baking plans. In fact, it threw off the rest of his day.

Bitty hadn't seen Lardo in forever. When he knocked on her door, she either didn't respond at all or just called out a brief, "Busy!" He could hear her shuffling around on the other side of the kitchen wall when he sat really still and didn't make a sound. Bitty had never understood art majors.  Was that just normal for seniors in general? Ransom and Holster had been in and out a lot as well. Maybe so much work was just part of the process.

He left food outside Lardo's room sometimes, since he knew she would work herself to the bone rather than take a break and make herself something to eat when she was on a roll. The only thing left on them were crumbs when he found them again, left in the sink when he wasn't looking. So he knew she was eating a little, at least. She was probably working at odd hours, coming out of her room for breaks and snacks when Bitty was in class or in bed. Still, it would have been really nice to talk to Lardo. But he didn't want to interrupt.

Dex and Nursey had basically swallowed up Chowder in their weird tug-of-war too. Bitty had no idea what was going on there. He would have to speak to them soon. Privately.

Last year's Halloween kegster had been great, but Bitty wasn't sure if they were having one again this year. There had been no mention of it. There had been no mention of _any_ parties thus far in to the school year, and Bitty was having a tough time figuring out why Holster and Ransom would let any opportunity for one slip by like that. Maybe that was still a senior thing. Everyone was just so. Scattered.

Bitty stopped himself. He was making it sound more dramatic than it really way. It wasn't like the semester had been a _disaster_ so far. It was just the little things. The way it never seemed as bright in the kitchen when he was alone, how the food never seemed to last as long or stay as fresh. The invisible but real way they had all begun splintering in to factions. Was it because Jack and Shitty had graduated? Because now three of Bitty's closest friends were seniors? He thought they were stronger than this. Apparently not.

"Bittle? You there?"

It took a lot of strength not to jump out of his skin. Bitty gazed back down at his phone, where Jack still looked back at him, eyebrow cocked. Bitty shook his head. He had forgotten they were talking.

"I'm sorry, Jack," he said. "I just zoned out there for a minute."

"Are you alright?" The concern in Jack's voice was audible, despite the static from the line and the miles of distance.

"Of course. I was just thinking about some things is all."

"Anything I can help with?

 _Come back_ , Bitty didn't say. Instead, he said, "You can start by telling me more about that new kitchen of yours. Do the counters really glisten like your mother says?"

"You've been speaking to my mother?" Jack asked, amused. Bitty smiled in to the camera.

"Once or twice."

"Oh, yeah? About what?"

"Oh, this and that," Bitty said, waving his hand. "Mostly about the dream kitchens all your possible apartments held. And then _the_ dream kitchen, now that you've finally decided on one. I sometimes need to be reminded that pieces of heaven exist on this earth."

Jack laughed. It was like a breath of fresh air Bitty hadn't known he needed.

\----------

Lardo tossed another ruined canvas to the side, not caring if the wet paint stained the carpet or not. She could hear Bitty through the walls, laughing at something else she couldn't make out. It was too noisy. She needed to concentrate.

She glanced at the growing pile of ruined canvases on the floor as she searched for her headphones. Garbage. All garbage. She'd have to start over. Again.

It used to be that she could take her mistakes and make them in to something entirely new, something better than her original idea. But this was unsalvageable.

Lardo grabbed another blank canvas and placed it on her easel. She would have to do another supply run soon. She was running low on blank ones.

The afternoon light was good. Perfect, even. When she finally popped her headphones in, even Bitty's voice faded away along with any other outside interference. There were no distractions now. There was no reason she wasn't getting it right. The problem wasn't environmental; it was her.

Fine. It was fine. Lardo had been in slumps before. She'd just work past it.

Good. Good, good, good—

"Shit," she hissed. Wrong move. Start over.

There went another canvas. The strange part was, she couldn't even describe what she had done wrong. She just knew it _was_ wrong. Unfixable. And that frustrated her even more.

In a motion that didn't even feel like her own, Lardo tossed the canvas off to the side and picked up a new one. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she spared it a quick glance. Shitty. She'd call him back later. As soon as she got past this slump. Then she'd call back.

Soon enough the phone stopped buzzing and Lardo ignored the way the screen lit up with _12 Missed Calls_ as well.

Briefly, she considered leaving for a bit, getting some fresh air before she started another piece. Taking a break. Calling Shitty back early.

No. If she stopped now, she'd lose what little concentration she had. She had to finish this as soon as possible. The thought spun around in her head again and again, like an invader waving their flag. Lardo knew what she wanted to paint. The idea was there, just under her skin. If she took a break, she'd lose it entirely. She'd get to a stopping point first. An outline. Then she could stop.

Lardo took a breath and dipped her paint brush in the brown. One more time.

\----------

Chowder's eyes opened slowly. His bedroom was bathed in darkness and the red digital lights on his bedside clock were too blurry to decipher, but he knew it was late. No way he had to be up yet.

Blearily, he wondered what had woken him up, his thoughts as sluggish and tired as the rest of him. Maybe Dex and Nursey were having an early morning argument again?

He waited, straining his ears in the darkness. But when Chowder couldn't make out any frustrated voices from the other side of his bedroom walls, he closed his eyes.

He had no idea if he drifted off for a while or if it was immediate, but Chowder jerked awake for a second time. He had definitely heard something this time.

There was enough moonlight shining through the window to make out the shapes of his dresser and chairs scattered around the room, but no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Maybe he was just restless.

There. The closet.

Chowder shifted for a moment, wearily rubbing the sleep from one eye without sitting up. A damp, cool patch of pillow pressed against his cheek from where he must have been drooling in his sleep, but he was too tired to bother moving just yet. He was barely awake enough to listen for the noise.

 His closet door was closed. There was only enough of a gap between the door and the wall for air to slip through. It was almost too faint to hear, but Chowder could make out a quiet scratching sound on the other side of the door.

He closed his eyes. It was probably a mouse. The old Haus got mice sometimes too. They were all really cute and super harmless, but Bitty threw a fit if he found any near his kitchen. Chowder didn't bother getting up. If it was scratching against the door, that meant it probably couldn't get out. He'd just grab it in the morning. Chowder didn't feel very rested, but if he fell asleep right now, maybe he'd feel more refreshed when he woke up again. Not that it had worked any other night this week. But a boy could dream.

Now that he'd noticed the scratching though, hushed as it was, Chowder couldn't unhear it. It certainly wasn't loud, but it was there and it was nearly enough to make him consider getting out of bed and finding a shoebox. But that would have required moving and energy Chowder didn't have. Plus, his bedroom was _cold._

He snuggled up tighter in the blankets and hoped the mouse would just give up already. He would rescue it in the morning.

There. It stopped. Finally.

Only to start back up again, louder, rougher than before. He peaked one eye open slightly.

There was no way a mouse could make that kind of noise.

A frown tugged at the corner of his lips. A rat... could be cute, he guessed. But they were bigger than mice and did more damage. If it was a rat, he would have to get out of bed and grab it now rather than in the morning.

Chowder opened his eyes fully with a soft groan and propped his hand under his chin, eyeing the closed with a sleepy wariness. He'd never dealt with a rat before. He thought maybe Dex had, since he'd worked on ships and stuff. Or maybe Nursey, since he lived in Manhattan and there were lots of rodents there. Or so Chowder had heard.

But it would have been rude to wake up either of them to deal with _Chowder's_ rat problem. Plus, if he woke up just one of them, he might wake up the other too, and then they would probably just bark at each other the whole time. So maybe not a good idea.

He missed the brief, glorious week they had gotten along.

The closet door shook once and Chowder heard more than saw the jiggle of the doorknob. He shot up straight in bed.

Okay. That was... weird. He didn't think rats could move doors like that.

Chowder tried to think about suction drafts and how the wind could push things over in old homes. Holster had been complaining about it being really cold lately. Maybe there were lots of weak spots in the walls that let air in.

The doorknob rattled almost _violently_ and Chowder jumped, now fully awake, reaching for his phone on the bedside table. The light switch was across the room, too far to reach. Rats and wind didn't do _that._

He fumbled with the phone case and saw it bounce off the edge of the bed and into the darkness below, indistinguishable from the rest of the carpet. The doorknob— and by extension, the _whole closet door_ — shook like someone on the other side desperately wanted out. The sound of the trembling metal and wood seemed to swallow the whole room and all Chowder could do was stare, heart pounding in his chest.

His eyesight flickered between his closet and where the bathroom connected to his own room. Nursey and Dex were just on the other side.

"Guys..."

It came out as a whisper, a shout whose energy had been drained by fear. Chowder's heart hammered away like a drum, sitting low in the base of his throat. This was what it meant to be petrified, to be so consumed with fear you became more stature than human. He couldn't bear to look away from the closet door for more than a second.

Even so, he glanced away again, then back. The bedroom door was so close. And yet Chowder couldn't move.

"Bitty..."

His own voice was near silent to his ears. Strangled. He still couldn't move.

The closet shook.

\----------

Bitty was frantic.

He threw his computer in his backpack and tossed his binder in after it. Some of the papers spilled out in his haste, and Bitty cursed, diving for them. His alarm hadn't gone off that morning and now it blinked _7:43 A.M._ at him, mocking. He had an 8 A.M. exam he couldn't afford to miss. Bitty wasn't even dressed yet.

There was a knock on the door. Bitty yelled for whoever it was to come in, still struggling to gather his notes in time.

"Hey, Bitty, can I— Oh."

Without turning around, Bitty knew Chowder had spotted the mess. Because he was a sweetheart like that, he trotted over to Bitty's crouched form and helped him collect the papers without another word.

"Please hold these for a moment," Bitty said once they had gathered them all, shoving the rest of the papers in to Chowder's waiting hands. He jumped up and ran in to the closet, ripping his pajamas off as he went.

"I'm sorry, Chowder, did you need something?" Bitty raised his voice so it could be heard through the wood of the door.

Chowder's voice sounded different when he responded, but then again, it was still early.

"Can I talk to you about something?"

Bitty had already shoved his jeans on. They may have been dirty or clean; he couldn't tell.

"Now isn't really the best time," Bitty said. He yanked a random shirt off a hanger. "Can we talk later?"

"Uh. I mean. Not. Not really? It's kind of important—"

Bitty burst out of the closet. He was sure there was some kind of metaphor or joke in there, but he didn't have the time to think about it. Chowder was staring at the floor, shifting from foot to foot, still blessedly holding the notes Bitty had shoved at him, only now they were in a slightly more manageable pile. He must have arranged them while they had been speaking.

"Oh," Chowder cut himself off. "Bitty, you're shirt is inside out."

"What? Shit. Thank you."

Bitty went about fixing it. The clock read 7:46. There wasn't a lot of time.

"It's about last night," Chowder said. "Did you hear the noise—"

"Oh, that?" Bitty said, frantically looking around the room for anything he might have forgotten. No time for a shower or breakfast. "Listen, Chowder, I know Dex and Nursey can be loud and I _promise_ I'm going to talk to them soon—"

Chowder startled. "What? No, that's not—"

"But it'll have to be later because I really don't have time at the moment!"

Backpack, check. Wallet, check. Pencil, check. Okay. He was good.

"Bitty, you're not really listening—"

"I'm sorry. Later, I promise!"

And with that Bitty sprinted downstairs. He trusted Chowder to shut the door behind him.

"Wait!"

If he sprinted the whole way, Bitty could just maybe get there in time.

\----------

Someone pounded down the stairs like a dog from Hell seeking its latest victim and Lardo groaned, pulling another pillow over her head. It was too _early_ for noise. She had got to bed at.... She couldn't remember. Late enough that it was early again. And it had been less "gone to bed" and more "pass out in her clothes on the mattress."

What time was it? Lardo groped blindly around for a moment before her fingers curled around the plastic. It was no use, however. He phone was dead. She couldn't recall where the charger was and she wouldn't have bothered to plug it in if she had.

Whatever. The time didn't matter. The sooner she slept, the sooner she could get back to work.

\-----------

It was probably the last time Holster was going to be allowed to shower in the comfort of his own private bathroom for a long time. He planned on making the most of it.

"Dude," Ransom said from the other side of the curtain. Holster could picture him sitting on the bathroom countertop, arms crossed, watching the steam swirl in the air. "You've been in there for like fifteen minutes. How long are you gonna take to condition your hair?"

"Listen, I don't police your showers, so you can't police mine," Holster said, holding the bar of soap in one hand. Truth be told, he hadn't gotten around to doing his hair yet. But Ransom was right. He was going to make the most of his hair care.

"My showers aren't twenty minutes long."

"Excuse me if I want to savor the privacy of my own bathroom one last time.

Ransom's sigh was audible even over the noise of the water.

"I'm _so_ sorry that I don't like hanging out in the Haus of Evil," he said sarcastically. "I didn't say you had to be with me 24/7. You can just stay and live here like a normal person."

"Dude, I'm not doing this because you asked me to," Holster said. "I want to."

Of _course_ Ransom would never say, hey, I think the Haus is mega haunted and we should all move out immediately, right now. The rational part of him was much too big for that. But after their ghost hunt had turned up nothing and all Holster found online were really sketchy records of some other frat living here in the 90's, Ransom had been adamant about not sticking around longer than he had to. He was equally insistent that ghosts weren't real, the problem was all in his head and he was just going to stay away for a while until it went away.

Ransom was out of his mind if he thought he was going to torture himself by living off junk food in the library for who-knows-how-long and Holster wasn't going to be there every  step of the way. What kind of friend would he be to let Ransom subject himself to that his own?

Plus, what if the weird vibes Ransom felt were like an osmosis thing? Like, Holster would start to carry them with him if he stayed at the Haus half the time and saw Ransom the other half. He wasn't sure what he would do if Ransom _really_ started to avoid him like Holster had thought he was doing before. Holster wasn't taking any chances.

"Well, could you hurry it up?" Ransom sighed. "I have still have to shower too."

Holster rolled his eyes. "If you're in that big of a rush to get out of here, just join me."

There was a pause on the other side of the curtain.

"Are you serious?"

Holster shrugged, even though he knew Ransom couldn't see it. "Yeah, whatever, we've seen each other naked before and you're _clearly_ in a hurry."

He couldn't hear anything over the rush of water and when he concentrated hard enough, Holster could just barely make out Ransom's outline on the other side of the curtain, as still as the wall behind him. He knew Ransom was probably running his brain ragged with the possibilities. It was easy to picture the overworked gears churning in Ransom's skull.

Finally:

"Okay."

Holster was... relieved wasn't the right word, but it was close. He definitely relaxed.

He kept his voice steady. "Okay?"

He could faintly make out a shrug on the other side of the curtain, then what was unmistakably Ransom tugging off his shirt. "Yeah. Move over."

Holster did. Now the water only partially hit his body, running freely down his right side and not his left. The water wasn't that warm, but once out of the spray, goosebumps rose on his arms. He rubbed them away as Ransom's pants dropped to the bathroom tile.

There wasn't much else to look at when Ransom pulled the curtain back, so Holster allowed his eyes to wander a little down Ransom's chest before looking him in the eyes. Ransom quirked an eyebrow. Holster shrugged.

There wasn't much room in the shower even with Holster backed up nearly against the wall. When Ransom reached out to test the spray, his hand was maybe an inch away from Holster's chest. Holster swallowed.

Then the water actually hit Ransom's hand.

" _Fuck_."

And then suddenly his hand was on Holster's bicep instead, actually _yanking_ him out of the tub and on to the bathroom tile. They went down in a flurry of limbs, misplaced gravity and motion working against them, both the tile and Holster soaked with water. Ransom went down first, and barely a moment passed before Holster toppled on top of him. They were both still naked.

Holster jerked away out of surprise, almost fully sitting upright before slipping again and falling ass-backwards onto Ransom's discarded pants. It was, at least, marginally better than the icy tile, if still uncomfortable.

Ransom sat up and gaped at him. Holster scowled.

"Ransom, what the fuck, I said join me in the shower, not 'let's go down on the bathroom floor together.'"

Ransom was looking at him intently, but it wasn't the maybe-erotic way Holster had maybe been picturing a moment ago.

"Holy shit, are you kidding me?" Ransom said. "That water was fucking _boiling_!"

A bead of said water ran down the back of Holster's neck and he wiped it away, irritated.

"What are you talking about?" He asked. "It's lukewarm at best." The old pipes in this place were shit.

"Are you joking right now?" Ransom shot back. "I literally just saved you from second degree burns."

"Ransom, I was _just_ —"

"Adam, _look at yourself_."

Holster shut up. First names were serious business. Without any further preamble, he stood up and wiped the steam away from the mirror. Ransom followed in suit, more than likely not wanting to be an eye height with Holster's junk. In the background, the shower continued to run.

He definitely did not look the way he should have. Lukewarm water wouldn't have turned the skin on his neck and shoulders the ugly pink it was. Holster twisted, getting a better look at his back. It was just as red. He looked like something pulled out of the oven.

In the mirror, he watched Ransom tentatively dip his fingers into the shower spray and then pull back quickly with a hiss. He reached around the water and twisted the knob to "off," shaking his hand hard afterward, the way people did when they were burned. Holster frowned.

"You can't tell me you didn't feel how hot that was," Ransom said, catching his eye in the mirror. "You can't."

Holster still wanted to argue. But now that he was out in the open, there was no way to deny the raw feeling slowly spreading over his skin.

"Actually," Holster admitted slowly. "I thought it wasn't that warm. I even wanted to turn the heat up some more, but I couldn't get the dial to turn any higher."

Ransom stared at him for a moment, lips parted in shock. Then he set his mouth in a firm line.

"Get dressed," he said, picking his boxers off the floor. "Fuck this place. We're leaving."

"Anywhere in particular?" Holster asked, following Ransom's instructions. This was not how he had expected the day to go.

"The store. Your lobster skin needs some aloe."

\----------

She was close. Much closer than she had been before. It wasn't perfect, not yet. But she had almost gotten it right this time.

Lardo picked up another canvas and placed it on her easel. It was considerably smaller than her other pieces, but the size didn't matter. She was going to get it right. Soon.

\----------

It was late in the day by the time Bitty made it back to the Haus. The last faint slivers of sunlight had nearly disappeared over the horizon and Bitty couldn't wait. The day had gone nowhere but downhill after his alarm had failed to go off that morning.

First it was running late to his economic exam. Then it had been his mind going blank when he actually got the test in front of him. He was pretty sure he'd bombed that one. Annie's had been closed for some reason when he stopped by for a pick-me-up, and while Bitty had been staring forlornly at through the windows, a passing cyclist had veered through a puddle and soaked his shoes with freezing, filthy water. There hadn't been any time to run back home and change, so Bitty spent the day in his uncomfortable, sopping sneakers.

The rest of the day had gone on in a similar fashion, one thing tumbling after another. So much so that Bitty couldn't bear to dwell on it. He just wanted to relax and take his mind off things. He was sure if he Skype'd anyone or tweeted about it, he'd just end up even more miserable than he already was. Baking was the only thing left.

Chowder was already sitting at the kitchen table when Bitty walked in, twirling a pencil absently between his fingers and not looking at anything in particular. He stood up from his seat when he saw Bitty, letting the pencil fall to the table. Dimly, Bitty recalled the conversation they'd had that morning.

"Bitty!" Chowder's voice came out in a rush, though somehow unlike his usual excitement. "Can I talk to you?"

"I'm a little tired right now," Bitty said, distracted, crossing the kitchen and opening the fridge.

It took him a moment to realize there weren't enough ingredients to make _anything_. No pies, no muffins, no scones. He'd thrown out so many bad ingredients this week, he should have realized. Of _course_ there'd be nothing to use. Quietly, Bitty swore to himself.

"But it's really important," Chowder insisted, shifting from foot to foot. For once, Bitty was almost annoyed at his mannerisms, how nervous he looked, the way he was talking. He couldn't fathom why. But the annoyance pulsed behind his eyes like an oncoming headache. "It's about what I said this morning?"

"I told you I'd talk to Nursey and Dex."

Bitty felt his pocket for his wallet. It was there. Good. At least something was right today. He'd just have to go to the store. It would be, what? Thirty minutes, tops? He could do that.

"Yeah, okay, but it wasn't Nursey and Dex. I _know_ it wasn't. It was really scary, actually, and it came from my closet and it _shook_ , like, really hard and I didn't know what to do and then it stopped and—"

"Wait, what?" Bitty shook his head. Chowder spoke almost too fast to make sense. "Your closet... shook?"

Chowder nodded quickly, encouraged. "Yeah, and I thought it was like a rat or something and I couldn't move and I waited like all night for the sun to come up, but in the morning there wasn't anyone—"

"Okay," Bitty said, sighing and running a hand over his sore eyes. "Alright, Chowder, you had a bad dream."

Chowder faltered. "No, it wasn't—"

Bitty cut him off, inching toward the door. He just wanted to get some eggs and butter and get back already.

"If there wasn't anyone there, you must have dreamed whatever you thought you saw. There's no other explanation."

"That's not—"

"I'm going to the store," Bitty said. His hand rested on the front door's handle while Chowder hovered in the kitchen doorway. "I'll come back and make something, if you want. But I can't fight your imagination for you."

"But—"

"I'll be back in a bit."

It was dark when Bitty stepped outside.

\----------

Chowder sat on the couch in the living room, legs pulled up to his chest. As gross as it had been, he missed the old couch. Really, he missed the old Haus.  The TV was playing some old rerun of Psych, but he didn't bother paying any attention to  it. He'd only turned it on to fill the space.

He didn't like the living room. When he sat on the couch, there was so much open space in the front hall that it felt like someone might creep up behind him at any second. Chowder refused to turn around to check. But he didn't want to go back to his bedroom either. Not when he didn't know what was lurking in there.

He thought Nursey and Dex were home. Maybe Lardo too. But it felt wrong to run to them like a child afraid of the dark, talking about monsters in his closet. Nursey and Dex were sure to already be mid-fight if they were home at the same time, and if they had entered some kind of tense truce instead, Chowder didn't want to be the one to break it.

Lardo... He couldn't remember the last time he had seen more than a glimpse of Lardo turning a corner or slinking away from the kitchen, but if that was a testament to how busy seniors were, he didn't want to bother her.

Maybe Bitty was right. Maybe it was all in his head and Chowder just had to suck it up. He didn't want to be the boy who cried wolf. He didn't want to be compared to children. What possible explanation was there for what he had seen? Nothing, except a jumpy attitude and lack of sleep.

Chowder frowned, tucking his chin on top of his knees. Bitty _was_ right.

The TV flickered. Chowder didn't really notice it until it flickered again, once, twice, then off, Shawn Spencer's absurd declarations that a dinosaur had committed the murder cut off mid-sentence. Then the lights went off too. The only source of illumination came from the orange street lights outside the window. Even so, it made for dim lighting.

Chowder's frown deepened, but he didn't uncurl from his balled position on the couch. The forecast hadn't called for storms today. It wasn't even raining.

In fact, Chowder was pretty sure the frat across the street was still lit up with electricity. He could see their own kitchen lights from the living room window. It was only the Haus that had gone dark.

Well. That could mean anything. Chowder was pretty sure he'd heard Holster complain about the thermostat in the mornings. Haus 2.0 was old. Older than the original Haus, maybe. The wiring was bound to be faulty.

There was a long, groaning kind of creak that echoed throughout the room and poured ice in to Chowder's veins. He looked up.

The basement door was opening by itself. Chowder watched, holding still as the creaking droned on and on, until finally the doorway was wide open and Chowder felt like he was staring into the gaping maw of a giant beast. The basement stairs descended in to pitch black darkness.

Well. That. Could mean anything.

Chowder didn't move, unsure of what to do. Then he heard it. Faintly, and then again, louder. He stared.

"Chowder?"

"Dex?"

There was no mistaking it. That was Dex's voice rising from the basement. But that didn't make any sense.

"Chowder? Are you there?"

Why would Dex be in the basement? Unless he'd been trying to fix something? Dex was really handy with that kind of thing. Chowder had seen him fix Betsy plenty of times before she finally gave out, and he talked about how pipes and electricity and stuff worked like he knew what he was talking about. Dex was a really handy guy.

The lights had only _just_ gone out. So it didn't make sense for him to be down there fixing those. But if Dex had gone down to look at something else, like the boiler or the thermostat Holster kept complaining about, and the lights went off on him instead...

Chowder unfurled from the couch and hesitantly stood up. The wood was cool under his bare feet.

He'd never been in the basement before. Maybe Dex couldn't find his way out without a flashlight.

"Dex?" He called across the living room, hoping his voice carried. When there was no answer, he tried again. "Dex?"

He padded softly across the room, stopping just shy of the basement stairs. He couldn't make out anything in the abyss. "Dex? Are you down there?"

Chowder really, really hoped he wasn't. He didn't want to go to the basement. But he'd do it if Dex needed his help. Chowder wasn't five. He wasn't afraid of the dark.

Something creaked and Chowder shivered. Okay. Maybe he was a little afraid. But he wouldn't let that stop him.

He steeled himself.

"Chowder?"

It didn't come from the basement. Chowder swirled.

It was Dex, he saw with great relief, standing on the staircase that led to the second floor, one hand gripping the banister so he wouldn't fall in the dark. Chowder could barely make out the baffled look on his face.

"Are you okay?" Dex asked.

Chowder blinked. "Are _you_ okay?"

There wasn't enough light to make out the fine details, but Chowder had seen it happen enough times to know exactly how Dex's freckles rearranged when he scrunched up his nose.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" Dex said incredulously.

"Because you were calling for me."

"No," Dex said, drawing out the syllables. " _You_ were calling for _me_."

Then something yanked Chowder down into the basement.

\----------

Dex didn't say anything when Nursey plopped down at the foot of his bed. He didn't say anything when Nursey continued to scoot closer and closer, and he continued not to say anything when Nursey leaned over, face so close to Dex's that Dex could nearly feel the heat from it.

"Hey," Nursey breathed. The air tickled his skin. Dex didn't lift his head form his computer screen.

"Get the hell away from me."

"What're you doing?"

Nursey turned his head to catch a glimpse of the articles on the computer screen, but Dex had long since switched to a new window about the Samwell Daily Journal. He knew better than to let Nursey see what tabs he really had pulled up, most of which were titled some variant of "What To Do When You Live With An Asshole," or the other marriage counseling Q&A's he had previously been browsing. He was reluctant to admit the marriage counseling ones offered better advice than the other, more general articles.

If they _had_ to live together, Dex refused to do it in misery. He was going to figure out a way to work with this, even if it meant ignoring the worst of Nursey's personality. If only Nursey felt the same.

"Get out of my face," Dex muttered after Nursey made no motion to move away. Nursey glanced back at him, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" He said. "Can't a guy read the news with his roommate?"

Dex could feel that itch under his skin, the same one that always arose whenever Nursey got that tone in his voice.

Nursey smirked at him. If anything, he moved his face closer to Dex's. Now Dex could definitely feel breath on his cheek.

He wanted to wipe the smug look off Nursey's face, one way or another. He wondered what would happen if he clocked Nursey in the mouth right then, how visible the bruise would be on his lips. He thought about the way Nursey would moan and complain afterward, how he'd soak up Chowder's sympathetic affections while Dex got the cold shoulder. It was both a pleasant and unpleasant thought.

He thought about erasing Nursey's smirk another way. They were already so close. It would be easy for Dex to turn his head a little, shift just so—

"What's the matter, Poindexter?" Nursey asked. "Got something to hide?"

Dex threw his open palm over Nursey's face and shoved him away. Nursey did pull back, but he didn't get off Dex's bed.

"Why the rough attitude? I just asked a question. You should relax."

Dex scowled at the word "relax" and at the same time, Nursey grinned, triumphant.

It was a Friday night. Dex could go anywhere, do anything. He didn't have to put up with this.

He closed the lid of his laptop and swung his legs off the bed, not bothering to avoid smacking Nursey in the upper thigh with his foot as he stood up.

"What, cat got your tongue?" Nursey teased as Dex shoved his computer in to his backpack.

 _Do not engage,_ Dex thought, pulling the zipper shut. _He's just trying to rile you up. Do not—_

When Dex turned around, he nearly bumped foreheads with another person and pulled back, startled. He was caught between another body and his desk, which bit in to the back of Dex's legs as he leaned back. Nursey had snuck up on him so quietly Dex hadn't heard him move.

"What's the matter?" Nursey asked again. Quieter. Lower. "Cat got your tongue?"

Dex thought again how best to wipe the grin from Nursey's face. He wondered how hard he'd have to bite to leave a mark.

"Don't—" Dex's voice caught in his throat. He swallowed.

Nursey blinked, long and slow. His head tilted. He was always in Dex's space. "Don't what?"

Above them, the lights flickered and blew out. Only the moonlight streaming in from the window behind Dex provided any illumination. It wasn't nearly enough.

Dex shoved Nursey's shoulders, hard, sending the other boy stumbling back toward the center of the room. Nursey just looked at him.

"Did you fuck up the lights just now?" Dex demanded, crossing his arms. It was a ridiculous accusation, he knew, but his brain was running wild.

Nursey scoffed. "How could I have—"

"Shut up."

"You just asked—"

"No, I mean, _shut up_."

To his surprise, Nursey did. It was clear once there was no other noise, Nursey heard it too.

Their bedroom door was open and it was only for that reason Dex could barely make out the sound for Chowder calling for him downstairs.

Dex stroke past Nursey and through the doorway.

"I'll be back in a second," he threw over his shoulder. "Don't touch my stuff."

"What if I was going downstairs too?" Nursey said.

"He's asking for _me_ , not you," Dex shot back. And then he smiled a little to himself, because he knew that would sting.

Just like he thought, Nursey stayed in the bedroom while Dex moved through the dark. He should have grabbed his phone or a flashlight, but Dex refused to turn around and give Nursey a chance for a comeback. It wasn't _that_ dark.

Dex gripped the stair railing and made his way downstairs. The old wood creaked under his weight.

"Dex?"

He paused halfway down the staircase. Chowder stood in front of the basement floor, barefoot like Dex, looking down in to it like it held one of the world's biggest secrets.

"Chowder?"

Chowder jumped at his name, spinning around as though he hadn't expected Dex to come when he called. Dex stared at him.

"Are you okay?" Dex asked.

Chowder blinked and looked back like _Dex_ was the crazy one.

"Are _you_ okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"Because you were calling for me."

"No, _you_ were calling for _me_."

There was just enough of a pause between them for some of the synapses in Dex's brain to click into place and tell him something wasn't adding up. Then, before his very eyes, Dex saw the hood of Chowder's jacket bunch up and roughly jerk itself to the side, as if pulled by a force neither of them could see. Chowder went tumbling down the basement stairs. The door slammed behind him.

"Holy _shit!_ " Dex cursed, running down the last of the steps and skidding to a stop in front of the basement door. Immediately, he could hear Chowder's cries from within.

"Stop! Let me out, let me out— Let go!"

The doorknob looked like nothing more than a mass of shadows in the darkness, and when Dex gripped it, it remained unyielding under his fingertips. It didn't budge, didn't even jiggle, no matter how much force Dex put in to turning it. He slammed his fist again the wood. That remained solid too.

"Let me out! Please!"

"I'm trying!" Dex shouted back, even though he knew Chowder was probably panicking too much to hear him. He needed help. "Nursey!"

Nursey was by his side in a flash, and Dex briefly thought he must have heard the commotion long before Dex called. Then he shook his head.

"What the hell happened?" Nursey shouted over Chowder's cries.

"I don't know!" Dex yelled back. "I think something grabbed him!"

And if someone was down there with him, Chowder's screams suddenly made a lot of sense. Dex's whole body went cold.

" _Get off of me!_ "

There was something just under the sound of Chowder's voice, some kind of deep rumble that was nearly inaudible under all the noise. It wasn't unlike a growl. Dex wondered if he was just hearing things in his own panic or if it was simply the sound of the air conditioning kicking in.

But the air conditioner wouldn't be working if the electricity was off.

Dex and Nursey shared a look, and for once they were totally in synch. If the doorknob wouldn't give way, something else had to. Within seconds they were perfectly lined up and slamming the full force of their combined body weight in to the door. It splintered  under their combined strength and Dex hoped Chowder was far enough away from the door to be clear of whatever debris shot out.

The house was old, along with everything in it, and for all the doorknob was well-made metal, the door was not. It gave away completely the second time they rammed in to it, and Dex would have fallen right through the hole if not for Nursey's hand on his shoulder, pulling him back.

Nursey's hand slid from Dex's shoulder to his chest in a "wait" gesture. Dex reluctantly listened as Nursey crawled through the ruined doorway and in to the abyss.

He couldn't make out much, just muffled noises from below. Even Chowder's cries had stopped completely, and that sent his teeth on edge. Dex waited.

Then Nursey reappeared as quickly as he had disappeared, pulling Chowder through the doorway with one arm and shoving Dex with the other.

"Go, fucking _go!_ "

Dex didn't hesitate. He grabbed Chowder's other arm and together they all sprinted up the stairs and back to Nursey and Dex's room, slamming the door shut behind them. Dex immediately shuffled through the darkness of their connected bathroom and locked the door that led to Chowder's room from their side. Then he turned around and felt his way out.

Chowder and Nursey were catching their breath on Dex's bed when he walked back out, and it was the first real look Dex had gotten of the two of them since they had reemerged from the basement.

Nursey looked ruffled, though not terribly worse for wear. His hair was a less put together than usual, a little more tousled and a little less immaculate. His breath was heavy and shoulders were tense, though Dex didn't miss the way he was still holding Chowder's hand. Chowder clutched back like it was a lifeline. For once, Dex didn't have it in him to be jealous.

Chowder looked fucking awful. His pupils were blown so wide his eyes were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the darkness and his whole body shuttered with every other breath he took. He was pale, paler than usual. The left sleeve of his hoodie had been torn to shreds and underneath, the skin looked red and swollen.

Dex swallowed, then crouched in front of Chowder on the floor, waiting until they made eye contact to speak.

"Hey," Dex said softly. He had no idea how to speak to someone who looked like they were on the verge of a panic attack, not that Dex could blame him. He glanced quickly at Nursey for some kind of cue, but Nursey offered nothing. "Hey, Chowder, do you think you could take your hoodie off for me? We need to look at your arm."

For a moment Dex was sure Chowder wouldn't respond, would just go in to shock while Dex watched. But then he nodded, once, with a jerk-like motion. Ever so slowly, he released Nursey's hand and tugged the hoodie off. He winced every time his left arm moved and Dex wished he knew there was a better way to go about this. He turned his attention to Nursey.

"There's no one else in the Haus, right?" Dex asked him.

Nursey nodded.

"I don't think so," he said.

"Okay," Dex replied. "Okay. Call 911 and tell them we have an intruder in the Haus. Then call Bitty and tell him not to come back. Tell him to spread the word. I'm going to take a look at Chowder's arm. Got it?"

Whoever had attacked them had probably run off by now. And if not, their door would hold in the meantime. Even if somehow somebody did break in, both he and Nursey were 6'2'' and weighed more than the average man. They could take a random robber.

Nursey paused for a moment. The shadows played off his stubble in strange ways. Then he nodded.

"Alright."

"Don't call the police."

The objection came from Chowder. They both looked at him in surprise.

"It's not a person," Chowder continued. His voice shook and the fingers of his good hand played with the hoodie he had placed in his lap. "I. I tried to tell Bitty, but he— he wouldn't listen and then—"

"Chowder, you're going in to shock, okay?" Dex said. "Just lie down for a second."

" _No_." Chowder said firmly. Dex hadn't expected such heat in his reply. There may have been a wetness gathering in the corner of Chowder's eyes, but he sounded sure of his words. "You and Bitty both. You never _listen to me_. I _know_ what I saw. And— It's not—"

It seemed like it had taken all of Chowder's remaining energy just to get that far. He seemed to sag under the weight of his own exhaustion, shoulders slumping down along with his spirit. He took a long, shaky breath.

"Okay," Nursey said softly. His fingers wrapped around Chowder's hand and Dex followed in suit, grasping the hand on Chowder's injured arm lightly. "We're listening now."

Chowder took a sharp breath.

"I _heard_ you," he said, looking directly at Dex. "I know I heard you. You were in the basement. I thought you were down there. I thought— But it wasn't you."

He paused for a moment, taking a new breath of air.

"It's okay," Dex said, squeezing Chowder's hand lightly. "Take your time."

"Yeah," Nursey breathed in agreement.

Chowder opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a sharp gasp. He tried again, then closed his mouth. His jaw was clenched so tightly Dex could only imagine what he was holding back. Chowder shook his head.

When it became clear Chowder couldn't continue, Dex looked back at Nursey. His thighs were starting to burn from crouching, but he didn't move.

"We need to look at his arm," Dex said quietly. Nursey nodded in agreement. "And we still need to call the police and Bitty. That can't wait."

Nursey took a deep breath. Dex dreaded his next words and closed his eyes in preparation, counting to ten. He knew they were about to disagree.

"I think Chowder is right," Nursey said, just as quietly. "I don't think we should call the police."

" _What_?" Dex said harshly. Then he paused, shooting a look at Chowder and lowering his voice. It wouldn't do to set him off. Dex didn't want to be rude, but he wasn't going to take chances in a situation like this. "Now's not the time to be joking."

Nursey caught his eye. "I'm not joking."

"Why the hell shouldn't we call the police?" Dex shot back. "There's some fucking crazy person downstairs who _hurt Chowder_ and you want to play games?"

"It's not a person," Nursey repeated. It felt like a vein in Dex's forehead was ready to burst.

"How the hell do _you_ know it's not a person? It sure as hell wasn't a _dog_."

"Because you _weren't_ _down there_ , alright? You didn't see what I did."

 _Because you held me back_ , Dex didn't say. He bit back the words with a sharp bite to his cheek. Instead, he said, "It was pitch black down there. How could you _see_ anything?"

"Because I could still feel and hear and I know what I did and didn't see," Nursey said. "You yourself said you didn't see what grabbed Chowder. It wasn't a person."

_"How could it not be a person?"_

"Trust me."

Dex rolled his eyes. "You want me to trust the opinion of someone who is _in shock_ — sorry, Chowder— and _you_? I don't feel like being murdered, but thanks."

"Dex," Nursey said deliberately. He held eye contact. " _Trust me_."

A long silence passed between them. Dex stared at Nursey, mouth pressed in a thin line. He could feel Chowder's eyes on him without looking. Nursey stared back, equally stony.

They looked at each other until the only thing in the world Dex could see was the dark green of Nursey's eyes. It felt like the silence might swallow them up and never let go.

"Holy _shit,_ " Dex finally whispered. "Fuck. Okay. I'm going to trust you this _one fucking time_ and I swear to god, you better not make me regret this shit. Fuck."

He couldn't believe he was going to actually trust Nursey about this absolute horseshit.

"You still need to call Bitty," Dex added. "We're not letting anybody walk in to danger blindly. And someone still needs to look at Chowder's arm."

Nursey nodded. It was enough.

Dex turned his attention to Chowder's injury. He took a moment to really inspect it for the first time, unobscured. The skin along Chowder's forearm was raised and, even in the darkness, obviously inflamed.

Once, when Dex was young, he had seen his uncle spill a pot of boiling water while crossing the kitchen. His uncle had pushed him out of the pathway of the water and it had splashed on to his uncle's arm instead, leaving a line of red welts that took weeks to heal. Even today were still scars on his uncle's arm.

Chowder's arm looked a lot like that, Dex thought. He needed real medical attention.

He grasped Chowder's arm by the gingerly wrist and carefully turned it over. The welts ran even across the underside of his arm. If they took on the shape of some kind of hand, Dex desperately wanted to chalk it up to his imagination.

The sound of Chowder's voice made them all jump.

"I think," Chowder started hesitantly, pausing between his words. "I think Lardo might be in her room."

"What makes you say that?" Nursey prompted.

Chowder shrugged. "I just. I'm pretty sure she was home already. When. You know."

"Did you actually see her or do you just think she's here?"

Chowder hesitated again. Then he shook his head.

"I don't know," he admitted. He kept his eyes on the floor.

"Alright, there's no way in hell she didn't hear us all screaming our asses off," Dex said. "So she's probably not home yet."

"Unless something got to her first," Nursey replied.

He had a point.

"Fuck," Dex said. "Okay. Fuck. Nursey, stay here. I'm going downstairs."

Tonight was the shittiest night in his entire life. Probably all of their lives.

"That's a terrible idea," Nursey said. Chowder nodded his head.  

Dex ran a hand threw his hair roughly, no doubt forcing most of it to stand on end. He glanced rapidly between the door and the two males sitting on his bed, running through his options. There weren't many.

"Well, what the fuck, do you just want to leave her down there?" Dex said.

Nursey scowled at him. "Why do _you_ have to go down there alone?"

"Because Chowder's in no condition to go anywhere and someone needs to be here in case something else goes wrong." It was more likely than not going to go wrong.

"Why don't _you_ stay here and _I_ go downstairs?"

 _Because you already put yourself in danger once to get Chowder_. Once again, Dex kept the words to himself. He stood up from the floor and tried not to show his pain from the blood rushing back to his thighs.

"Because we don't have time to argue," Dex said simply.

"How will we know you're the one at the door?" Chowder asked.

"I'll say it's me."

Chowder bit his lip so hard Dex thought he might cut his lip. He wanted to smooth the worry away from his face, but with Lardo downstairs, there was no time to waste.

"But it has your voice," Chowder whispered.

Oh. That.

"Okay," Dex said. "Then I'll. I don't know. I'll figure it out. You'll know it's me."

Nursey and Chowder shared a look. Chowder nodded reluctantly.

"Okay."

"Okay," Dex repeated.

"Listen, Poindexter," Nursey started to say. It came out softer than the other times he'd called Dex _Poindexter_ , but Dex shook his head. They couldn't spare any more time.

"Just get your ass back up here," Nursey finished in lieu of whatever else he was going to say before. Dex didn't ask about it.

He followed Dex to the door, hovering so close Dex wondered if he might try to stop him at the last second. He didn't.

"Call Bitty," Dex said. Nursey nodded.

When the door shut behind him, Dex heard the click of the lock. He eyed the staircase.

Alright. Go time.

\----------

Lardo's iPod being so close to death would have made her search frantically for the charger any other day, but today she simply took her earphones out and let the machine drop to the floor. She placed her paintbrush off to the side and sat back, admiring her work.

She had done it. Despite the power outage, she had gotten it right. Lardo didn't know if she'd ever been prouder in her life.

The door opened to Lardo's left. She turned.

It was Dex. His face looked different in the shadows. He closed to door behind him with a soft click, not saying anything. Lardo turned her attention back to her painting, admiring it even more. It was difficult to make out the exact shape of everything since the lights had gone out, but she thought that just added to the beauty of it.

"Dex," Lardo greeted. Dex raised a finger to his lips and shushed her. She continued with a whisper, "Look at this. Isn't it amazing?"

"Listen, we have to go," Dex whispered quickly. He looked at her painting. "What the hell is this?"

"Perfect," Lardo said.

He was clearly at a loss for words. Obviously the perfection of it overwhelmed him.

"Uh, okay," Dex said, grabbing her bicep and lightly tugging her to her feet. "Listen, we need to leave right now, okay?

"No," Lardo said.

Dex looked at her incredulously. "Why the hell not?"

"I have to wait for my painting to dry," Lardo told him. "I have to make sure nothing happens to it."

"What the fuck," Dex breathed. It seemed more to himself than her. "Lardo, this is seriously a life or death situation. We don't have time to wait for your painting to dry."

She didn't look at him. "Then I don't want to go."

"Are you _fucking high_ or something?" Dex asked, voice raising to almost normal volume. Then he caught himself and pulled back to a rough whisper. "I'm dead serious right now. This is not some prank I came in here to play in the middle of the night. You need to either run outside right now or follow me upstairs, okay? But you can't stay here."

"No," Lardo repeated. She was firm with her voice and dismissive with her attitude. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Fuck, okay, I'm sorry, but we don't have time for this."

Before she could ask what he meant, Dex wrapped one of his arms around her torso and lifted her from her artist's stool like she weighed nothing. With her tiny stature and his muscles from years of hockey, it was probably true.

Lardo fought back immediately, wiggling in Dex's grip, but his tight hold kept most of her immobile. She took a deep breath, preparing to scream as long and shrilly as she could, but Dex beat her to it, covering her mouth with his hand instead. She bit down, hard, and even after Lardo could taste copper in her mouth, Dex didn't let go. He swore sharply instead.

"Knock it off," Dex said. "I'm _sorry_ , okay? But I'm literally saving your life right now. Will you just run outside already or will you just come back in if I let you go?"

Lardo bit down harder.

"Don't say I didn't give you the option."

Somehow Dex held her even tighter as they passed through the living room. He didn't loosen up until they were well upstairs and behind closed doors.

\----------

It was only a little after eight, but Ransom was close to falling asleep on Holster's shoulder when they got the call.

 _Bitty_ flashed on his phone screen along with three different pie emojis. Holster picked it up by the third ring.

"Hola," he greeted into the phone receiver. Ransom opened one eye and glared up at him, but there was no real heat behind it. Nobody else in the library looked up.

"Holster?" Bitty asked from the other end of the phone.

Holster sat upright and ignored the way Ransom pulled back, obviously annoyed that his nap had been disturbed. Bitty's voice was hesitant. Nervous. Nowhere close to its usual cheer and confidence.

"What's wrong?" Holster asked. Ransom perked up.

Bitty never called. Not really. Even when he needed Holster or Ransom to pick something up from the store, he just sent text after text until he was sure they got the message. There was a reason Bitty was always on his phone, but never actually using it for its intended purpose.

"I—I don't know," Bitty said. He stuttered when he spoke. "I— Nursey called me and said something happened to Chowder and then— something about Lardo that didn't make _any_ sense and— I don't, I don't know what's going on. I got back to the Haus, but all the lights are out and Nursey told me to stay outside, but—"

"Bitty," Holster said as evenly as he could. "You need to breathe."

Bitty took a shuddery breath. His voice sounded a little more solid when he spoke. But only a little.

 "You and Ransom need to get here right now."

"Okay," Holster agreed. Ransom was still looking at him. "We're coming. If Nursey said to stay outside, then stay outside. We'll be there soon."

"Nursey— he said that I shouldn't call the police, but I don't understand—"

"Bitty," Holter repeated in to the phone. "Just stay outside. We'll be there in a minute."

"Okay," Bitty said, more to himself than Holster. "Okay."

Then he hung up. Holster shot to his feet and Ransom followed in suit, grabbing his backpack without prompting. They were already making their way down the stairs, dodging random students and librarians alike, when Ransom opened his mouth.

"What's happening?" Ransom asked.

"Ghost shit, I think," Holster replied. "We gotta get back to the Haus."

They sprinted out of the library. It was about a fifteen minute walk back to the Haus. They made it in seven.

When they finally arrived at Haus 2.0, the lights were off. Completely out. The other frats on the block were lit up exactly how they should have been on a Friday night. A large tote bag that looked to be filled to the brim with butter and a few other assorted goods sat alone on the sidewalk, abandoned, its contents partially spilled on to the pavement. Bitty was nowhere to be seen.

Ransom and Holster shared a look, barely taking a moment to catch their breath before barreling inside. They didn't stop to inspect the broken basement door or the way the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees. It was hard for Holster's eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness after being so used to the streetlights outside, but he didn't slow down, Ransom hot on his heels, until they made it upstairs.  Holster could barely make out the sound of voices behind Nursey and Dex's bedroom door. He rapped his knuckles across the wood quickly.

The door opened almost immediately, revealing Bitty's pale face on the other side. When he caught sight of Ransom and Holster, he opened the door wider and allowed them to step through.

"You didn't even check to make sure it was really them!" Dex chided from the other side of the room.

Bitty ducked his head. "I'm sorry. I forgot."

Holster looked at him. He looked shaken up by whatever he had seen in the time it had taken them to get back to the Haus, but steady on his feet, at the very least.

The next thing Holster noticed— and wow, he can't believed he missed this for the first thirty seconds he was in the room— was Lardo. She laid on her stomach on the far side of the by one of the desks. Nursey had pinned her arms above her head and pressed his knees to her shoulders to keep her from moving. He had adjusted his weight so he didn't appear to be crushing her, but it still no doubt impossible for someone of her size to escape his hold.

Someone had slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth. Had it not been for the gag, she looked like she might have screamed. Or murdered everyone. The look on her face was very murderous.

Nursey looked back at them. "I promise this isn't nearly as bad as it looks."

Then he winced at his own words.

"Okay," Ransom said. "Does anyone want to explain to us what the hell is going on?"

Holster took it all in for a moment— Bitty's nervous shifting, the look the three underclassmen shared, the bandages wrapped around Chowder's arm, the way Lardo struggled under Nursey's weight. A beat passed where nobody said anything.

"Any day now would be good," Holster prompted.

Bitty was the first.

"Chowder tried to tell me," he said. His voice was stronger than it had been on the phone, but a look of guilt had settled over his features in replacement. "All today he tried to me that he had been hearing things. And I didn't listen. I told him it was his imagination and when I left to go to the store, something attacked him. I didn't listen and I should have."

Ransom nodded. "Okay. Do you want to tell us what exactly happened to Chowder?"

"He got snatched by the boogeyman and dragged down in to the basement," Nursey said. "And got his arm burnt to hell and back. So Dex and I broke down the door."

Dex and Chowder nodded in confirmation.

That at least explained the busted door downstairs. Holster had to give them props. Go big or go home.

"Alright," Holster said. "And why are we restraining Lardo right now?"

At the mention of her name, Lardo began squirming even harder. Nursey doubled down on his grip.

"She didn't come out of her room even when she heard us all yelling," Dex answered. "So I went to get her and tell her to get out of here or something. If we just left her in her room, then she'd probably just get grabbed like Chowder did. But then she started going on about how she had to watch her painting and how she wasn't going anywhere. So I grabbed her and she _freaked out_ and then we had to keep her from running back to her room to watch paint dry, but I still say this is a better alternative to getting murdered. I don't know what the hell her problem is."

Apparently it was a big one, at least. Lardo fought like she was possessed. Holster didn't doubt that if Nursey let up for even a second, she would probably have torn his face off. That didn't keep him feeling at least a little bad at having to restrain her though.

"Final question," Holster prompted, looking at Nursey again. "Why did you tell Bitty not to call the police?"

 _That_ made everyone go silent again and every passing second without answer was another tally mark in the supernatural check box.

"Because I went down in the basement to get Chowder," Nursey finally said. "And that thing was _not_ a person. No bullshit."

Holster glanced at Dex and Chowder.

"And do you two agree?" He asked.

Chowder nodded immediately. Dex paused for a moment, caught in a war within himself. Then he nodded once with a sharp jerk.

That settled that much, at least. But there was still one more person to go.

"Bitty," Holster said carefully. "Thoughts?"

Holster had been willing to believe in spirits and the supernatural since his early days in Haus 1.0, even if he thought most of the time they were harmless and not this malicious like in Haus _2_.0. Ransom, for all his protesting that ghosts weren't real, hadn't said a word against Dex and Nursey's testimony and seemed willing to at least act on the assumption this was all really happening. Obviously Nursey, Dex and Chowder themselves were shaken up. They had certainly seen something and seemed a little more lenient toward the supernatural at this point. And something was obviously very wrong with Lardo for her to be pinned down like this. He would have to investigate that more in a minute.

Bitty was the only one he was unsure about. As far as he knew, Bitty had been out of the house when the frogs had their basement experience and hadn't had any other kind of supernatural experience on his own. Out of everyone in the room, Bitty was the one most likely to call them out.

"I heard what Lardo said," Bitty said, eyes flickering over to Chowder on the bed. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "Before they put the tape on her. And I heard what happened in the basement. I'm. Not entirely sure what's happening. Or what I believe."

Then Bitty looked up and locked eyes with Holster. "But something is definitely not right here."

Holster nodded. That was good enough for now.

"Hey," Dex said suddenly. "When I grabbed Lardo from her room, she was making some really weird drawings."

"Like what kind of weird?" Ransom asked.

Dex shrugged. "Like. I don't know. I'm not an artist. Like something from a horror movie or something. She was really not happy to leave it behind."

Ransom shot Holster a look. Holster nodded slightly.

"I mean, Lardo paints gory stuff sometimes," Bitty said. He didn't sound very confident in his protest. "Remember that time if she asked if she should just paint bleeding cow hearts for a class?"

Holster backed a little closer to the door. Ransom followed.

"Yeah," Holster said. "But I have a feeling it's not like that this time."

"We'll be right back," Ransom added.

\----------

"Oh, what the fuck," Ransom said as they opened Lardo's bedroom door.

Firstly, there were old plates and garbage scattered everywhere.

Secondly, it looked like Lardo had tossed about twenty different sized canvases between her bed and the wall without caring about where they fell. They took up a lot of space in the bedroom, but they were all turned on their side or had footprints across their fronts like Lardo had stepped on the wet paint without caring.

Thirdly, there was one canvas sitting in an easel in the center of the room and on it was the biggest demon-summoning circle Holster had seen in his life.

"Oh, what the _fuck_ ," he echoed.

Holster was not an expert on the occult and spirit/demon summoning. But after perusing the darker side of the internet for days on end, Holster knew what it was when he saw it. He also knew what he was going to do about it.

"It's probably not likely Lardo just drew this randomly, is it?" Ransom asked as they stepped in to the room. Holster plucked the painting from the easel and held it out.

"Probably not," he agreed. "Hold this."

Ransom took it. Holster picked up one of the paint brushes from the floor, twirled it around in his fingers so the wooden end stuck out and then stabbed the canvas through the middle of the fabric.

"Whoa!" Ransom jumped back but didn't let go of the painting. "A little warning would be nice next time."

"Sorry," Holster said, forcing his fingers through the hole and tearing it open as wide as he could. By the time he was finished, the hole ran from top to bottom of the canvas and spread about two inches wide.

The floor shook for a moment, like a great beast taking a gasping breath. Something made of glass fell off the far bookshelf and shattered on the floor. Then it stopped.

"Okay," Holster said as they regained their bearings. He eyed Ransom for a moment in the darkness for any sort of injury, but he looked okay. "That may or may not have just cured Lardo. Or made her worse."

Ransom took a deep breath, then sighed. "I guess we should find out."

When they reentered the second floor bedroom, nobody looked up. They were all too busy looking at Lardo, who had suspicously stopped trying to escape Nursey's grasp. Now she was just blinking rapidly, looking back and forth between the faces staring back at her. She huffed a little through her nose when she saw Ransom and Holster.

"Hey, Lardo," Holster said. "You're totally normal now, right?"

Lardo dragged her cheek across the floor in a nod. She looked coherent, at the very least.

Ransom looked at him. Holster shrugged.

"Alright," he said. "Good enough for me. Let's get that tape off you."

The first thing that came tumbling out of Lardo's mouth when they removed the tape was, "I feel fucking disgusting. And get off of me, I'm not going to sock you in the jaw anymore."

Nursey moved. Lardo sat up quickly, rubbing her wrists. She spared Dex a quick glance.

"Hey, uh." Lardo cleared her throat and looked at the floor. "Sorry I tried to bite your hand off. I wasn't really myself."

For the first time, Holster noticed the cotton balls Dex had pressed to his hand, no doubt soaked with the rubbing alcohol from the container next to him. A few more discolored cotton balls sat by his feet. Lardo's bite had done a number on Dex's hand. Maybe the tape had done more than just keep her quiet.

Dex shrugged. "It's fine. Sorry I picked you up like a doll and made Nursey sit on you. And tapped your mouth shut."

"Don't be sorry about _that_ ," Lardo told him seriously. "That was some _Exorcist_ shit. I don't know _what_ was going on in my brain."

"I do," Holster said. "You were fucking possessed by the spirit who lives in this house to make another summoning circle for it so it could be stronger. But now Ransom and I broke your painting and the summoning circle you drew on it while you were possessed, so it's weaker now and you're not being influenced by it anymore. At least for the moment."

Everyone turned to stare at him simultaneously, Ransom excluded. Holster looked back blankly. He let the words sink it.

Nursey's voice fell flat. "What."

Okay. This was going to take some explaining.

"The most likely explanation for all the stuff that's been going on lately is that Haus 2.0 used to be the sight of ghost summoning and occult stuff," Holster said simply. "Possibly because of the contractors who built this place, but more likely the old frat that used to live here. They probably got too deep into this shit, got the hell out of dodge, and made enough complaints that whoever owned the place didn't rent it out for a long time. Without negative energy to feed off of, the spirit or demon summoned here went dormant. House stayed empty for over a decade, we move in, spooky shit starts up again. Spirit influences us all negatively, feeds off the negativity we give it in return. Gets stronger, does shit like grab Chowder and influence Lardo to make new spirit circles. Boom, here we are now. That's the condensed version. Was I clear enough or do I have to repeat anything?"

Everyone was quiet for a long moment. Then Dex spoke up.

"That is the most far-fetched movie bullshit I've ever heard in my entirely life."

"Seconded," Lardo said. "Zero out of ten, would not recommend."

"Do you have a better explanation?" Holster asked, a little ruffled. "We found a Ouija board in Bitty's room when we first moved in. _Somebody_ who used to live hear clearly had an interest in this sort of thing. And online records show that the last people to live here was another frat back in the 90's and nobody has lived here since. It was some kind of academic team, like math or chess or whatever. They were probably all a bunch of nerds who got in over their head with stuff they didn't know anything about, and then just shoved it all under the rug and left instead of dealing with it like adults."

Dex made a face. "Do you even hear yourself?"

"Considering I was the one who was actually kind of possessed and I'm willing to take that as it is for the moment," Lardo said. "I think it says a lot that I'm more than a little skeptical of your explanation of how we got here."

Holster looked at Ransom. "Dude, back me up here."

Ransom paused. "Normally I would 100% be on your side right now, but I do have to admit your version of events sounds a little far-fetched. But I will also admit I haven't been doing as much background research as you, so I'm going to have to default on this one."

" _Bro_."

Dex made a grumbled something under his breath. Chowder lifted his head from Dex's shoulder and stared at him while Nursey flicked some kind of paper across the room. It hit Dex in the forehead. 

"Ow."

Bitty pressed his palms to his eyes and rubbed them like he had a headache.

"Okay!" He said loudly. "I'm not willing to believe that's all entirely true, but I'm not going to argue about it right now. How this happened doesn't really matter. We can work that out later. What matters is what we do about it."

He had a point. Probably the best point he'd heard all night. Ransom nudged him with his elbow.

"Alright, it's one thing for Ransom and I to do it, but I'm not letting every single one of us live in the library for the rest of the year," Holster announced. "That's just ridiculous. We can't _all_ do that. And Haus 1.0 isn't fixed yet, so we can't go back there either. The Samwell school board is not going to believe we're haunted. So we're going to have to fix the problem here instead."

Honestly, he would have made this a group discussion a long time ago if he had realized this was effecting everybody. Looking back on it, he should have realized. There was nothing to do about that now though.

Nursey looked at him. "You sound like the white dad from every horror movie."

Lardo and Dex snorted simultaneously and even Chowder cracked a smile. It was hard to argue with that when Nursey so obviously lightened the mood.

"So what do we do now?" Bitty asked.

"If this demon or spirit or whatever has been alive and kicking for all these years, something must still be anchoring it here," Holster told him. "So we should look for the anchor. It's going to look a lot like the thing Lardo drew."

"Big and ugly and lots of triangles inside circles," Lardo clarified.

"That's accurate," Dex confirmed.

"The Haus isn't _that_ big," Holster continued. "There's only so many places a summoning circle could hide. And it's probably also in the place where we've had the most paranormal activity so far."

They all paused, looking around at each other for a moment. Ransom caught Holster's eye.

"Dude," he said. "I fucking _hate_ the basement."

Holster pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, yeah, but I've already _been_ in the basement. _Several_ times. There's nothing down there."

"Were you ever down there specifically looking for a summoning-thing?" Bitty inquired.

Holster considered this. Ransom looked triumphant.

"I mean," Chowder said. "That _is_ where it tried to take me."

Dex and Nursey both stiffened at his words, as if reliving the moment. Dex threw his arm around Chowder's shoulder, pulling him close. Chowder melted in to the embrace. Nursey looked like for all the world he wanted to join them, but for some reason he didn't move from his spot. He just looked at them instead, face indescribable.

"Well," Bitty started. All eyes went to him. Holster had almost forgotten he was there. "If most of its power is in the basement, it makes sense as to why it would try to possess Lardo. She's the only one who lives on the first floor. She'd be the closest to it at all times."

"Okay, okay," Holster relented. "So it's in the basement. That means one of us is going to have to go down there. Preferably more than one, for safety reasons. I'm going. Who else?"

Ransom immediately raised his hand, but Holster shook his head.

"No," he continued. "Not you. You're more sensitive to spirits than the rest of us. If you got influenced like Lardo, it would take a lot more than sitting on your back to take you down."

"How many times do I have to tell you I'm not psychic?" Ransom demanded.

"Just like how ghosts aren't real?" Holster shot back, cocking an eyebrow. Ransom closed his mouth.

Nobody else said anything about the "psychic" thing. They were probably all variations of too tired to care and just wanting everything over with as fast as possible. It made things easier for Holster, at least.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but if we're gonna fight a fucking ghost, what the hell can we fight it with?" Dex asked. "What's a ghost's weak point?"

"It's a good thing this is all I've been looking up for the past two weeks," Holster muttered under his breath. At least research hadn't gone to waste, even if it didn't help Holster figure out what was really going on sooner. Then he continued, "Spirits are weak to stuff like holy water, salt, iron—"

Lardo interrupted him. "Did you say _iron_?"

"Yeah—"

Lardo may not have been large, but she was _fast_. She bulldozed by Holster so quickly his head was still spinning by the time he had realized what happened.

"What the hell are you doing?" Holster called after her retreating form. "The rest of you, stay here!"

Not everyone listened, of course. By the time Holster was halfway down the staircase, Nursey and Ransom were chasing after him. There wasn't any time to argue.

Lardo didn't duck in to the basement like he thought she would. Instead, she took a hard right at the bottom of the stairs, swerving through the kitchen to avoid passing right in front of the broken basement door, and sprinted down the hallway that led to her bedroom. The rest of them followed in suit. Holster didn't hear any kind of supernatural sounding noises coming from the basement just yet, but that didn't mean the thing was dormant. They shouldn't have been so close to its den without a plan.

When Holster flung her bedroom door open, Lardo had already found what she was looking for.

"Is that a _pipe_?" Nursey asked over Holster's shoulder incredulously. As though _that_ were the weirdest thing he'd seen tonight.

It was, in fact, a pipe. It was rusty and a little longer than the length of Lardo's whole arm. She brandished it like one would brandish a baseball bat. The far end of the pip had broken off to form a jagged edge, making it look like something more out of a prop for a gangster movie than a real weapon.

Despite its looks, Holster suspected it packed a real punch. Especially in Lardo's hands.

"Let me guess," Holster said. He moved farther in to the bedroom and the boys followed after. It wouldn't do to all stand in the hallway with their backs exposed. "Iron?"

"Yep," Lardo said, popping the 'p' like a piece of bubblegum. She swung the pipe a few times, getting a feel for its weight.

Ransom craned his neck to get a better look. It was a small bedroom. "Why do you happen to have an iron pipe in your room?"

Lardo looked at him. "Before this whole possession thing, I had a lot of other projects going on."

It was good enough for them.

"Nursey, Ransom, go grab as much salt as you can from the kitchen," Holster ordered. After they left, he turned back to Lardo. "You wouldn't happen to have another one of those, would you?"

She grinned at him. It was a good look on her. "Sorry, bud. Only enough firepower for one badass in this place."

Holster shrugged. "I didn't think so."

Nursey and Ransom returned with a large sack of salt and several zip lock bags. Faintly, Holster thought he could make out the distant sound of rumbling. The house was on to them.

"God bless Bitty and his baking," Ransom muttered as they poured some of the salt in to the zip lock bags. Nursey tossed the first bag to Lardo, who caught it with one hand and shoved it in to her pocket. Obviously she preferred the pipe as her main weapon for now. It didn't hurt to have a backup though.

"Alright, we have to do this fast," Holster said once they all appeared as ready as they'd ever be. Going back upstairs and announcing the plan wouldn't be worth it. The Haus was already on to them. No need to give it more time to regain its energy. "And I mean _fast_."

He gestured to the pile of paintings Lardo had previously thrown to the floor, all in varying stages of progress. "If you see anything that looks even _remotely_ like one of those, you yell, alright? Then you destroy it any way you can. Scratch it up, burn it, whatever. Just get rid of it. And keep your eyes peeled for demons or whatever the hell this thing manifests as."

Holster was in full on captain mode now. He turned to Lardo.

"Are you sure you should be down there?" He asked. "Since you've been. You know."

Lardo looked at him, steel in her eyes. It almost made Holster step back.

"I know what it feels like now," she said. "What's me and what isn't. I'm not letting that thing in my head again."

Holster nodded. He looked at Ransom.

"You need to go upstairs now."

"What? No."

"We already established this," Holster said. "You're more in danger of being possessed or influenced than the rest of us."

"Lardo was possessed!" Ransom pointed out. "And you're still taking her!"

Holster looked at him. "Are you going to be the one to take away her pipe?"

Nobody missed the way Lardo's grip tightened on said pipe. Ransom looked away. He was seething inside, Holster knew.

He really didn't want to have this discussion right now. But he knew if it was _him_ instead of Ransom, and Holster was told to wait upstairs with everyone else while _Ransom_ went off to fight some sort of supernatural demon, Holster would have thrown a fit. But it wasn't just Holster's personal feelings that were in the way. Ransom could take care of himself, he knew. He'd been doing it long before Holster had shown up.

"Whether you believe me or not, you've always been more sensitive to ghosts than the rest of us," Holster said softly. Nursey and Lardo averted their eyes. They didn't seem to want to intrude, but there wasn't anywhere else for them to go. Holster stepped closer to Ransom and spoke quietly into his ear to at least give the illusion of privacy. "Lardo got possessed because she's lived on the first floor for _weeks_. If we go down to the source of this thing and you're more susceptible than Lardo was, who knows what could happen? That's not a good game plan and you know it."

Ransom glared at him. "So you want me to just wait upstairs while you get yourself maimed. Or worse."

"No," Holster said. "I want you to go upstairs and make sure nothing happens to anyone else."

There was a pause. The air felt thick.

"If something _does_ happen," he continued. "And it _won't_ , but if it does, and the three of us don't come up, you're the next one in charge. I'm sure Lardo is going to literally butcher these spirits and make them wish they'd never been summoned, but if for some reason that doesn't happen, you're going to have to decide what to do. You and I have been looking at this stuff for _weeks_. I trust you more than anyone else in the whole world, man."

Ransom stared.

"Please."

He broke.

"Fine," Ransom relented. "I'll go upstairs. But if you get murdered or something, I'm gonna kick your ass, got it?"

"Got it."

Ransom reluctantly left, taking the last of the salt sack with him. He sent one last farewell glance behind him before turning the corner and disappearing in to the darkness. Holster waited until he could hear the creaks of Ransom climbing the staircase and walking across the second floor before nodding.

"Alright," he said. "Let's go."

\----------

The basement was pitch black when the three of them crept down the stone staircase. Of course it would be. No electricity, no windows. No speck of light to chase away any inch of darkness. Fitting.

Even after Nursey pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, Lardo and Holster still ran their hands against the wall so they wouldn't go headfirst down the steps. They somehow made it to the landing without incident and turned the corner, traveling down the second set of stairs that now led directly below Haus 2.0.

Holster was the first to make it to the basement. The air was cool down there, much cooler than the rest of the house or even the outside air. When Nursey and Lardo stepped behind him, their soft breaths seemed to echo for ages.

Slowly, Nursey raised his phone's flashlight and shone it across the room. Its beam didn't seem to penetrate the shadows nearly as well as it should have, but it was enough to get by.

Nothing jumped out at them. Nothing screeched. It was just the basement. On one side of the room, Holster could make out the water boiler and when Nursey dragged the light farther to the left, he saw the large wall of junk that amassed the far corner of the basement. The wall was made up of different sized boxes and broken plastic, odds and ends and a deflated air mattress no one had bothered to put up properly. It was all exactly as Holster remembered it.

"The proportions are all wrong," Lardo said suddenly.

"What?"

Was it his imagination or could Holster see his breath down here? He shook his head.

Lardo looked up at him. "I've taken a million art classes. Half of them are about proportions. And I'm telling you this place isn't big enough to fit the rest of the Haus."

"So, what, there's more space we can't see?" Nursey asked.

"Yeah." Lardo nodded. She gestured with the pipe. "Probably behind all that shit."

She pointed at the junk wall. Holster shrugged.

"Nothing left to lose, am I right?" He muttered, making his first steps toward the pile of trash. Lardo and Nursey shuffled after him.

Nursey stopped a few feet from the wall, backed up just enough so that his light could cast a larger beam than had he been closer. Lardo stayed at his side, pipe at the ready. Holster kept moving.

The garbage wall was tall, taller than him. Despite its unstable appearance, it nearly reached the ceiling. He raised one hand and gently tugged at one of the cardboard boxes sticking out of the pile. It pulled out just a little and the rubbish above it shifted, but didn't fall. Holster shivered.

That's when the growling started.

"Move!" Lardo shouted, and then her pipe was colliding with something Holster couldn't see. There was the sound of metal hitting something solid and that something went rolling across the floor. It growled. Nursey swore.

The sounds of a scuffle started behind him, but Holster didn't slow down in tearing the wall of junk apart, not even when Nursey's phone light began swinging wildly and Holster could only see what was in front of him for an instance every few seconds. He clawed at the boxes and plastic, pulling and pulling until they finally gave way, and Holster had to scramble backwards at the last second to avoid being trampled in the landslide of garbage. The noise of the wall collapsing was tremendous. It echoed throughout the basement and Holster was sure the boys could hear it on the second floor. Somewhere behind him, Lardo howled.

Nursey's light flashed by again and Holster crawled through the gap in the garbage. It was just like Lardo suspected. The basement went on. It was hard to tell exactly how far it went, but if Holster's mental map was correct, he was right below the bathroom on the first floor and Chowder's room on the second.

He ran his fingers across the concrete, feeling for any variation in the floor. Anything that would prove him right. Since Nursey's light was too unreliable, Holster felt with his fingertips instead, hoping and hoping they would catch on any hollow or cavity that— There.

"Holster, come on!" Nursey shouted through the darkness. Another sound that must have been Lardo swinging the pipe followed close behind. There was another, more unidentifiable noise. Something hissed like a crocodile.

"I could really use a light right now!" Holster yelled back.

Nursey swore. There was another hiss, more pained this time.

"God bless Bitty and his baking," he heard Nursey mutter, echoing Ransom's earlier statement. So Nursey had used the salt.

There were incoming footsteps that made Holster tense, but then Nursey was leaning through the junk wall and shining his light on the floor. Holster blinked a few times rapidly. It took a moment for the image to clear, but once it did, he shot up and out of the way.

Holster had found the summoning circle. And he had been sitting right in the middle of it.

"Shit," Nursey said. "It's etched right into the floor. How to we break that?"

"I don't think we have to destroy all of it," Holster told him. "We just need to break part of it. Disrupt the circle somehow. Probably the outside ring."

" _Okay_ ," Nursey said. "And how do we do _that?_ "

"Lardo!" Holster screamed. "Pipe!"

Lardo emerged from the darkness like a ghost. Holster couldn't tell if it was a bruise on her forehead or a shadow from a lock of her hair.

"What's up?" She asked. "We have maybe thirty seconds before that thing tries to jump us again."

"Can you take the sharp end of that thing and disconnect part of the circle?" Holster asked, gesturing to her pipe. "It doesn't have to be a big cut. It just has to go through one of the lines completely."

Lardo coughed. "You want me to cut through the floor with a _pipe_?"

"Not a lot," Holster said.

Suddenly the flashlight dropped to the floor as Nursey fell away from the group, pulled away by an invisible force. Or a force whose form was dark enough to match the rest of the basement perfectly.

"Fuck!" Holster screamed. He grabbed the salt bag out of his pocket and opened it, throwing some of the salt wildly. Something hissed and howled and there were footsteps retreated in to the darkness like Nursey had gotten away. Holster hoped he had.

Behind him, Lardo had grabbed the flashlight and hopefully was using her pipe to break the circle.

"Please," she whispered over the sound of metal running across the floor. "Please, please, please."

A force slammed in to Holster's side and he went down in a heap. Any screams he let out were swallowed by the thing screeching above him, inhuman and agonizing. It made his head spin.

Holster hit the floor and all the air rushed out of his lungs in one fell swoop. He raised his arms on instinct and connected with something not quite solid, not quite transparent. He could feel whatever was there just enough to keep it from snapping its jaws on his face, but the touch of its skin on his hands burned the way alcohol did on a wound.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," Holster repeated, over and over as he struggled to keep the monster or whatever it was away from his vital organs. He had dropped the salt bag when he went down and Holster didn't want to risk searching for it and giving the spirit an opening.

It bared down on his chest even harder, like it was trying by sheer force of will to keep his lungs from inflating. Well, it was doing a good job.

He wished it wasn't so dark. At least then it would have been easier to fight it. It was hard to battle a monster you couldn't see.

Then he took back that wish. Some things weren't meant to be gazed upon with the human eye and he suspected this was one of them.

The spirit snapped its jaws at him again, so close Holster could feel its hot breath on his throat, and he turned his head away, jaw clenched. His arms were straining. He couldn't hold it off for much longer.

And then it was gone.

In a split second, the horrible weight above him had disappeared and Holster took the deep breath he hadn't even known he needed. Was the air cleaner now, or was that his imagination?

Somehow he managed to stand up on his wobbly feet. He was relatively sure he was all in one piece.

Lardo must have done it. God, he was going to shower her with art supplies and coffee for the rest of his _life_.

"Is everyone okay?" Holster asked once he was relatively sure nothing else was going to try to eat them today. His palms ached faintly. He stood up. The flashlight was aimed at what he was pretty sure were Nursey's shoes, though he had no idea when Nursey had grabbed it again. "Nobody dead?"

"I feel like I got hit by a truck," Nursey complained, a mere phantom voice in the darkness.

"Okay, you're fine. Walk it off."

"Thanks, captain."

"Let's just get the hell out of here already," Lardo said. "A little light, please."

Nursey aimed his flashlight at the stairs. They all stumbled upstairs, one after the other.

The rest of the boys were standing in the living room by the time Holster crawled through the broken basement door, the last one in their merry band of misfits to escape the Den of Hell, as he mentally dubbed it. Chowder, Dex, Ransom and Bitty all watched with mild curiosity as Holster shook some of the dust from his hair.

"You okay, man?" Ransom asked. His eyes wandered every inch of Holster's body, no doubt scanning for some sort of bloody wound he suspected Holster to be covering up. Holster grinned and gave him a thumbs up.

"Yep," he said. "We totally saved the day. No more hauntings for us in this house."

He eyed Ransom with the same kind of examining look Ransom gave him. It was obvious by the way they were all huddled together and Dex and Bitty's pale faces that something had gone down while the others were gone.

"What the hell happened to you?" Nursey asked bluntly.

Dex shrugged casually. He tried to appear nonchalant, but his shoulders shook a little when he spoke.

"Eh. Some desks floated. A bunch of ghost lights appeared. Gravity reversed. Bitty flew up to the ceiling like that scene from _Poltergeist_. Ransom caught him. No big deal."

"Yeah," Chowder echoed, voice strained like he was swallowing a shout. "No big deal."

It sounded a lot like a pretty big deal, but nobody appeared willing to talk about it. Bitty's eyes were wide and he had wrapped his arms around himself like he couldn't make his body small enough, despite how much he seemed to shrink under Ransom's arm.

Chowder, Nursey and Dex were suddenly all holding hands. Holster couldn't tell if they realized it or not.

Lardo dropped her pipe with a _clank_ that echoed too loudly in the quiet of the night. She collapsed on the couch with a long groan.

"Why are the lights still out?" She moaned. Everyone else looked at each other and shrugged. "Whatever. Who even cares at this point. Let's just go to bed."

It was probably not even nine o'clock yet.

Holster took a good look around the living room. Everyone appeared in different shapes of dishevelment and exhaustion, himself included. The basement door was still busted. He doubted anyone would be going to sleep alone after this nightmare of a night. They certainly couldn't leave.

"Okay," he said, clapping his hands together. "Everyone grab your blankets. We're gonna have a slumber party in the attic."

Nobody complained when they shuffled back to their rooms to grab their sheets.

\----------

The very first thing Holster did in the morning, after a hearty breakfast an Annie's with the rest of the Hausmates (since nobody actually had the energy to actually cook and everything at Haus 2.0 tasted like garbage soaked in ghost miasma), was call the head of student housing and demand new accommodations.

Technically, because the frat houses were owned by the hockey team and not on university property, Samwell had no jurisdiction over the hockey team's housing. But because of the previous deal struck between the coaches and the school board before the semester started, the student housing got constant updates to the construction progress.

Holster phoned the housing department completely prepared to demand new accommodations for his team and fight for them with all his might, despite not having a real reason to move out of in Haus 2.0 (or, the Haus of Evil, as everyone had picked up from Ransom) that the school would believe. He called knowing repairs on the original Haus weren't complete, as well as the fact the coaches would probably have his ass for going behind their back like this and approaching the school about team property.

Holster refused to let his team stay in a haunted house any longer than necessary, exorcised or not.

And then a miracle happened.

"Why, yes, actually," the secretary who answered the phone told him, voice sweet as spun sugar. "The repairs were completed almost a week ago. It was the funniest thing, actually. We expected it to take another few months at _least,_ but then apparently the contractor we hired lost a lot of work. The Samwell Hockey team housing was next on their list. I've never seen something like that happen before."

Holster tried very hard to keep the hope from his voice. "Was the Haus— uh, _house_ declared safely habitable, then?"

"Absolutely," the secretary said.

"So the hockey team could move back in whenever they wanted?"

"I mean, they _could_ ," the secretary said. "But it _is_ still the middle of the semester. I don't see why they couldn't wait until at least winter break to—"

"I would like to inform you that the Samwell Hockey team will be moving locations as soon as possible."

"Oh— Oh, alright." He had clearly flustered her in his haste. "May I ask when exactly they will be moving?"

"At the earliest possible convenience," Holster said. "Probably today."

Then he hung up the phone.

The relief was entirely palpable in the air when Holster announced the news. The team had long since relocated on the lawn while Holster made his phone call. Nobody was willing to go back in the Haus of Evil after waking up this morning without good reason.

"Thank God," Lardo groaned, spreading out on the grass. She looked much better with the sun on her skin than she did last night, despite the cool air. "I don't know if I could spend another moment here in this demon pit."

She had refused to enter her room ever since coming back to her senses. Holster couldn't say he blamed her.

"Fuck this place," Nursey said. He and Dex sat side by side on the front steps, Chowder at their feet.

"Seriously." Dex agreed. Someone had wrapped a fresh bandage around his palm.

Between them, Chowder gingerly touched the bandages on his arm and nodded. From his spot in the grass next to Lardo, Bitty hummed.

Everyone was in agreement. Nobody made a move to stand.

Holster wandered over to the side of the porch and lowered himself down next to Ransom, back pressed against the wood. They were both quiet for moment. Holster closed his eyes. He still felt drained from the night before.

Ransom's knee knocked against his knee, shoulder knocked against Holster's shoulder. Their fingers brushed and Holster wasn't sure who was causing it. It didn't really matter.

He'd get up in a minute. He'd gather everyone around and they'd all traverse back in the Haus of Evil for the last time and they'd move their boxes down the street before the afternoon sun set too far in the sky. Then he'd take up a collection and buy another basement door to replace the one they had broken so the hockey coaches wouldn't kill them.  Holster would get up and do all that. In a minute.

"Hey," Holster said slowly, peeling his eyes open. The sun was bright today.  "You think the old Haus ghosts will be happy you're back?"

Ransom looked at him. He whispered softly, "Don't."

Holster grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a long process and I made a lot of changes along the way. Here are some notes, for those of you who are interested:  
> -Originally, the scene where Chowder confronts Bitty in the kitchen was going to be from Chowder's POV, but I thought it better to have his scene in in a cliffhanger and leave some ambiguity as to what happened and his mental state. You can pick up from his dialogue he stayed up all night staring at the closet, though.  
> -I genuinely spooked myself while showering by thinking of Chowder being terrorized by spirits in the closet and basement. Even if they weren't scary to you, my imagination sure was.  
> -Lardo gets the worst of the spirit terrorization because 1. She's on the ground floor, closest to the basement and 2. While everyone else has someone they can go to or some way they leave the Haus often, Lardo doesn't leave and a lot of her support system comes from Shitty, who is gone atm. And then ghost influence happens. I had more notes on this, but they take up a lot of space here.  
> -My hand cramped up really bad making this outline, but I work better on paper.  
> -Originally, it was Bitty's voice that lured Chowder in to the basement, but as I started to write it, I realized it had been a while since we heard from Dex and Nursey and I thought the momentary belief it could /maybe/ be Dex was scarier than knowing for sure right off the bat it wasn't Bitty, who we all saw just leave.  
> -When writing the scene where Hoster takes the Ouiji board from Bitty, I thought about making part of this fic Bitty/Holster. But then I decided that would be too much work for this AU. You can tell from the "spiritual experience" line Holster was hitting on Bitty a little, but I don't know how to write Holster and Ransom interacting without them being two breaths away from kissing at all times. Sorry I never got around to the actual kissing part.  
> -I tried to drop hints throughout the text that Lado was being influenced by the spirit early on and I hope I made that pretty clear. If not, I apologize. Surprise!  
> -I went through everyone's POV in the Haus except for Ransom's, which I feel really bad about. I knew Ransom's parts would be a lot of internal dialogue about how the Haus felt though and I didn't really want to add that on top of what I was already writing. But it did make me want to write a whole fic /only/ from Ransom's POV, so I might do that soon.  
> -Holster became kind of the action guy at the end of this fic, but I didn't really intend for that to happen. I also feel like Lardo is the other big hero, however, and I did kind of intend for that.  
> -I hope it was kind of understood, but I know I didn't outright state that one of the reasons Nursey and Dex are fighting when they were getting along the first week of living in Haus 2.0 is because negative ghost energy interference. They probably would have been pretty happy if not for that.   
> -Another fun fact: I actually drew a physical layout of how I thought Haus 2.0 looked so I could picture it better and I have it right next to me at this moment. The only real difference in the first floor and the addition of the basement, though.
> 
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> My tumblr is http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/ Feel free to hit me up there if you want. Don't forget to comment as well!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] spooky scary skeletons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8640073) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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